In India 48.1 million women are pregnant every year. 1 out of 7 pregnant women across India do not get any antenatal care. Research studies overwhelmingly show that poor nutrition and poor antenatal care in mothers increase the maternal, neonatal and infant mortality rates. Poor antenatal care is also directly related to increased rates of babies needing ICU care, infections in infants, poor growth of children, increased risk of preterm birth. All this in an already underresourced environment further burdens their financial situation.
Indian women do not have access to knowledge about reproductive health. They are not taught about pregnancy and contraception. Socially talking about their pregnancies leads to a lot of false truths, fake news and advertising specific content, which while being easily accessible is not reliable or credible. There are government subsidies available to women for their reproductive health but they are not aware and hence cannot take advantage of it.
Today with the advent of the Internet and technology women at every strata have access to a smartphone.
PREMAA bridges this gap and makes available easily accessible and credible information to women in their most important stage of life, impacting not only womens health and nutrition but that of the future generation. This app is available in 3 languages – English, Hindi and Marathi. It acts as a comprehensive tool for empowering all pregnant women to be in charge of their own reproductive health
Information available includes:
- Awareness of pregnancy related problems
- When to ask for help and what to do when you need help
- Evidence based experienced specialist to bust myths, societal taboos and superstitions
- When and why to see a doctor and the care available,
- Schemes and Yojana’s to avail
- How to know if I am pregnant
- Why and for what to take different tests and antenatal care
- Nutrition and diet advice, lifestyle advise across the different months of pregnancy
- Simple to use tracker to help you track the most important nutritional parameters – iron, calcium, water, doctors visit and next sonography dates
- Answers to medical issues that pregnant women have
- Understanding the progress of your pregnancy and your baby’s development at every stage of your pregnancy
- How to keep yourself active and healthy for a healthy child
- Contraception
The emperical fact is that Indian women are not taking care of themselves instead forsaking their health for that of their family.
Some statistics:
- 31.7% of men in urban India do not think antenatal care is necessary for their wives.
- Only 12% women said that they made decisions related to their health on their own.
- 37% of women had less than 4 antenatal doctors appointments in their entire pregnancy.
- Only 30.3% Indian women consumed iron and folic acid tablets for the recommended course of 100 days or more.
- Consequently, 50.3% pregnant women and 58.4% of children aged 6-59 months had iron-deficiency anaemia–a major cause of maternal deaths, preterm births and mortality of infants.
- India’s infant mortality rate is 34 deaths per 1,000 live births–the highest among BRICS countries.
- The neonatal mortality rate in India was 25 per 1000 live births and under five mortality rate was 43 per 1,000 live births.
To know more, download the PREMAA app on the Play Store
Dr. Esha Chainani