Safe Motherhood Alliance

Over 800 pregnant women are dying each day from complications in pregnancy and childbirth, and for every woman who dies, approximately 20 others suffer serious injuries, infections or disabilities. Two regions, sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, account for 88 % of maternal deaths worldwide. Sub-Saharan Africans suffer from the highest maternal mortality ratio with 546 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births or 201,000 maternal deaths a year. The three major reasons for the high neonatal and maternal mortality rates in these regions are lack of access to skilled personnel, lack of access to sterile tools for safe delivery and distances to the nearest health facility. Due to these challenges in Zambia it has one of the highest mortality rates in the region as only 47 % of births occur at a health facility, with over 53% births being home births with the help of untrained traditional birth attendant using unsterile tools and unsafe methods. We have developed a low-cost, single-use, disposable baby delivery kit using appropriate technology which contains all the essential tools recommended by WHO targeted at pregnant women designed to meet their unique needs in resource-poor settings ensuring sterile conditions at childbirth. We leverage mobile technology to help us scale to the last-mile using our USSD platform called Beacon using cloud technology to provide easy-to-read health information, interactive health screening text messages, and send vaccination reminders to pregnant women. We train women from poor communities to function as frontline health workers where they are needed most. After training the traditional birth attendants become our distribution agents earning a commission off every kit that they sell. Our model helps decentralize healthcare, improve referral linkages, leverage local resources, and above all, generate employment and build capacities we enable Government efforts for Universal Healthcare.