The USAID-initiated MAMA (Mobile Alliance for Maternal Action) project that utilizes cell phones to improve maternal health in developing countries gave an in-depth update at the latest mHealth Working Group meeting.

The pilot initiative, announced in May by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and co-sponsored by Johnson & Johnson, has begun work in Bangladesh. MAMA seeks to achieve “scale, sustainability and impact” by creating a replicable model of reaching low-income mothers and household decision-makers (husbands, mothers-in-law) through increasing the impact of current mHealth programs, providing technical assistance to new mHealth models, and improving methods of applying mobile technology to improving maternal health.

At the working group meeting, Sandhya Rao of USAID and Pamela Riley of USAID’s SHOPS (Strengthening Health Outcomes through the Private Sector) program discussed the status of Aponjon, the MAMA project in Bangladesh. Aponjon provides vital health information through mobile phones two times a week to expecting and new mothers, reminding them of when to receive checkups and how to stay healthy during the pregnancy. Bangladesh was chosen to pilot the project because the country’s government has been a leader in promoting and expanding access to ICTs and is very active in mHealth.

In order to bring it to a national scale, the burgeoning MAMA initiative has established private, public, and NGO partnerships to help implement its activities, and is carefully monitoring its methods and practices to ensure that the project is reaching its target goals. For example, Aponjon is constantly tweaking the content of its phone messages so that mothers and decision-makers understand, retain and relate to the information given.

Another aspect of the project that MAMA will be monitoring is its business models to determine which are the most sustainable and effective. Currently, customers pay service providers to retrieve the phone messages. Text messaging is the cheapest method for remitting information in most developing countries, but many of the poorest clients are unable to read the texts. The alternative is interactive voice response (IVR) through which customers can hear recorded messages at a much lower cost than call centers but more than texting. MAMA and its partners are experimenting with different pay schemes, such as subsidizing rates, working with service providers to offer low rates or donate funds to the project, and charging fees based on usage.

It will take the new initiative years before sustainable, reliable, and replicable models are in place. What is clear is that the potential for improving maternal and newborn health through the use of mobile phones is being tapped.