Mobile based audio services to families about pregnancy

New Delhi: Union Health Ministry has announced an audio-based mobile service that delivers weekly audio messages to families about pregnancy, child birth and child care.

Each pregnant woman and infant’s mother, registered in Mother and Child Tracking System (MCTS), a web- enabled system to monitor and ensure delivery of full spectrum of services to all pregnant women and children, will receive weekly voice messages relevant to the stage of pregnancy or age of the infant.

Developed by Tata Consultancy services as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility initiative, ‘Kilkari’ is aimed at helping to create and better environment in maternal and child health.

In the first phase of implementation, such messages would be sent to the pregnant women and infants’ mothers in Jharkhand, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and HPDs of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. They are being developed in Hindi, English and Odiya languages in the first phase, to be later expanded to other languages to cover the entire country. The project will benefit over 2 crore pregnant women and 2 crore infants, annually, J. P. Nadda, Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare said.

The Health Minister also stated that a new mobile-based application, Mobile Academy, had been developed through which about 9000,000 ASHAs will be trained using mobile services. Once registered, ASHAs can access the 240-minute course via their mobile phones.

The Ministry also announced ‘M-Cessation’, an IT-enabled tool to help tobacco users to quit tobacco. Built on a helpline concept, it will register beneficiaries on the basis of a missed call. The counseling will be done through a two-way SMS process.