NeoDoula

NeoDoula aims to improve maternal-child health in low- and middle-income countries through the development of communication services and technologies.

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Inspiration

One of our biggest source of inspiration is our access to direct clinicians who have visited rural communities and mothers in both Uganda and Pakistan. Their experiences highlighted the need for a resource to help mothers disconnected from the medical system and physicians

What it does

Our service provides SMS & Call-Based Maternal Health Service. Adapts to native languages & literacy levels for accessibility. Provides pregnancy check-ins, health tips, and connects mothers to midwives.

Rural communities in south asia and africa have ultra-high rates of infant mortality. The causes of death range from preterm delivery, to hypothermia, suffocation, and pregnancy complications. These can be easily avoided if there is access to immediate healthcare or consultation. However, the communities that desperately need the help are disconnected from these resources due to communication barriers and lack of stable electricity/transportation. We discovered that, while many of these communities were illiterate, they had access to wireless cell coverage and either direct or indirect access to a cell phone. So in order to address this underserved population, we developed an SMS/call based service that not only checks in on pregnant women during different stages of pregnancy, but also connects them to their local midwife for native communication/consultation and delivery. This service also adapts to the native language of the mother and their proficiency. Right now, our model can only send messages, but in the future, women can call the number to get personalized assistance in their native dialect/language.

How we built it

We built this using bluehost as our hosting platform, wordpress integrated inside of bluehost. We used elementr pro as the editing platform, and combined custom HTML code/CSS for the contact form 7 plugin with WP SMS plugin connected with Twilio's API.

Challenges we ran into

A challenge we ran into was developing an SMS messenger system that took the email from the form submission that sends the information to the backend. We would then process the data and send out messages to both the midwives and the patient. This was difficult because there is very little documentation when It comes to integrating WPSMS with Twilio, and especially since this was the first time integrating this API.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

A big accomplishment that we are proud of is the creation of the website that is translatable through over 90 different languages. Additionally, our website is able to be used on multiple platforms such as an iphone, a tablet, and a computer. We are also proud of our multifaceted solution to the problem. We are initially providing a sms service, and if the patient can't read english, they can translate the messages. If they cannot read or write, then they can call the phone line to connect with a physician or a midwife. And finally, if they do not have access to technology, our platform can help local health centers to train their midwives on the software before treating future patients.

What we learned

We learned how to concept map and to develop a solution that is patient based. We also learned to work around the limited resources that rural communities in eastern Africa have access to.

What's next for NeoDoula

Our goal is to create a more seamless automation between the forms on Wordpress and the Twilio SMS service. After that, we want to integrate a mapping network of midwives in different countries.

Overall, this project was fun but very stressful. We developed a whole website within the span of 4 hours including debugging, and two other website designs that crashed before that. In terms of team-mates, Haider worked primarily on the front end web design, Feroze worked on the backend and power point presentation, Yodhin made the mission statement and came up with the ideas, while Abdo analyzed a lot of data of countries such as Uganda and Pakistan. Additionally, Haider helped develop the backend of the website, and Yodhin finalized our pitch.

The flow of the project is that we collect the phone numbers of the patients along with their location, we connect them to their local midwives, then we create personalized messages to send via Twilio SMS, and we plan on translating multiple educational videos that are translated in as many languages as possible to train midwives at different medical centers.

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