Maheswari Rajan, 35, was admitted in a critical condition to a general hospital in rural Chennai. Her child had died in the womb a few days ago and the sepsis (infection) had spread through her body, threatening to turn fatal for her too.
India, which accounts for one-third of the global maternal deaths, is home to thousand such Maheswaris, who succumb to pregnancy-induced hypertension and low aneamia levels due to lack of awareness on prenatal care and health facilities in rural pockets of the country. At such juncture, a start-up called Care Mother has come as a relief.
Started in Mumbai by an NGO called Science for Society, Care Mother offers mobile pregnancy care through its portable solar-powered kit. The kit, which weighs around three kg, can be used by health/community workers for early and timely diagnosis of high-risk pregnancies, saving lives of both the child and mother in the process.
Care Mother offers cheaper and advanced tests for hypertension-induced preeclampsia, diabetes, anaemia, fever, foetal heart rate, Hb count, weight and pulse rate, fundal height among others. “Our calculations show that an individual in low resource setting can get five to eight tests for Rs 30-50, which otherwise would have cost them more than Rs 300,” says Shantanu Pathak, the co-founder of Science for Society. The entire kit comes for around Rs 40,000.
Health workers in villages can use the kit to provide door-step monitoring by maintaining records of the patients and doctors can use the Care Mother web application to oversee the same. Doctors use the application to remotely access patient details and schedule a hospital visit. In an urban set-up, husbands can also use their mobile app to get updates about the health of their expectant wives. The app sends SMS updates on the patient’s health condition as and when the kit is used and also has a scheduler to remind about antenatal check-ups.
The kit has lived up to its name too. In a major achievement, it was successfully used by ‘Doctors for You’, a registered medical humanitarian organisation, in the Govandi slum of Mumbai to detect high-risk pregnancies. A private hospital in Hyderabad has also deployed this kit and within a period of three months, it has helped more than 110 patients.
Future plans of the society is to reduce the weight of the kit and bring more intelligence into their mobile application. “We will soon bring Care Mother in a miniature form and make it a ‘purse carry kit’,” says Pathak, adding, child care and diabetes care will also be integrated into the same platform.
Tender Care
■ Started in Mumbai by an NGO, Science for Society, Care Mother offers mobile pregnancy care through its portable solar-powered kit. The kit which weighs around 3 kg can be used by health/community workers for early and timely diagnosis of high-risk pregnancies
■ Care Mother offers cheaper and advanced tests for hypertension-induced preeclampsia, diabetes, anaemia, fever, foetal heart rate, Hb count, weight and pulse rate, fundal height among others.
■ Health workers in villages can use the kit to provide door-step monitoring by maintaining records of the patients, and the doctors can use the Care Mother web application to oversee the same.