A mobile app could make childbirth safer
A new mobile app could make childbirth safer in Ethiopia, home to one of the highest rates of maternal deaths in the world.
“Safe Delivery App,” operated by a Danish nonprofit, the Maternity Foundation, gives simple instructions via animated videos and graphics in local languages as well as English on how to deal with emergency childbirth situations.
In Ethiopia, as many as 85% of women give birth at home with the help of only relatives and friends who are ill-equipped to deal with birthing complications like hemorrhaging, infections, high blood pressure, or obstetric fistula, which can lead to women being ostracized from their communities. As a result, Ethiopia has one of the highest rates of maternal deaths, deaths of a mother within six weeks of child birth—420 deaths per 100,000 (pdf, p. 38) live births, compared to an average of 239 per 100,000 births in developing countries, and 12 per 100,000 in developed countries. FULL STORY