Wired Mothers - Use of Mobile Phones to Improve Maternal and Neonatal Health in Zanzibar

Summary

Reducing maternal and newborn mortality remains a global challenge. Because obstetric complications cannot be predicted, skilled attendance at the time of delivery and access to emergency obstetric care remain the most effective strategies to reduce mortality. Antenatal care has the potential to reduce maternal morbidity and improve newborns survival but this benefit may not be realized in sub-Saharan Africa where the attendance and quality of care is declining. There is a rapidly expanding number of mobile phone users in developing countries and due to the potential to strengthen health system the use of mobile phones is health care is emerging. The investigators assessed a mobile phone intervention named "wired mothers" aimed to improve maternal and newborn health.

The hypothesis of the study was that the wired mothers mobile phone intervention would increase attendance to essential reproductive health services such as antenatal care and skilled delivery attendance and reduce severe adverse pregnancy outcomes for women and newborn.

The objective of the study was to examine the effect of the wired mothers intervention on antenatal care, skilled delivery attendance, access to emergency obstetric care and perinatal mortality.

The study was a pragmatic cluster randomized controlled trial with the primary health care facility as the unit of randomization. The study took place in 2009-2010 on the island of Unguja in Zanzibar. 2550 pregnant women who attended antenatal care at one of 24 selected facilities were included at their first visit and followed until 42 days after delivery. Facilities were allocated by simple randomization to either mobile phone intervention (n=12) or standard care (n=12). The intervention consisted of a SMS and mobile phone voucher component.

The perspectives of the study are that mobile phones may contribute to saving the lives of women and their newborns and achievement of MDGs 4 and 5. Evidence is needed to guide maternal and child health policy makers in developing countries.

Conditions

• Pregnancy
• Maternal Health
• Newborn Death
• Health Behavior
• mHealth

Interventions

DEVICE

Wired mothers

The wired mothers SMS component provided health education and appointment reminders to encourage attendance at routine antenatal care, skilled delivery attendance and postnatal care. A specially-designed software automatically generated and sent text messages throughout the pregnancy until six weeks after delivery. The frequency and content of the messages varied according to the women's gestational age. Mobile phone vouchers allowed all wired mothers to communicate directly with primary health care providers. Primary health care facilities randomised for intervention and hospitals were provided with a mobile phone with sufficient credit, while wired mothers were given a phone voucher with modest credit and a card with the phone number of her local primary health care provider.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, Zanzibar

  collaborator OTHER_GOV

• Danish International Development Cooperation

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• University of Copenhagen

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Stine Lund, MD, PhD · University of Copenhagen

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

14 Years

Max Age

45 Years

Sex

FEMALE

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2009-02-28

Primary Completion

2010-04-30

Completion

2010-04-30

Countries

• Tanzania

Study Locations