Vodacom launches maternal health service

By Kefiloe Kajane

Local company Vodacom, and Mondia, a private m-commerce company dedicated to connecting, digitalising and monetising mobile consumers, this week announced the rollout of the Mum & Baby maternal health service across Lesotho from September 2021.

Mum & Baby is a freemium mobile health intervention that provides Vodacom subscribers with maternal, neonatal and child health information designed to encourage good health practices amongst pregnant women, mothers, partners and caregivers.

Vodacom collaborated with Mondia to create Mum & Baby’s tailored content, which includes videos, expert articles, and information-sharing SMS messages.

According to a statement by Vodacom Lesotho, Mum & Baby also provides interactive tools including a due-date calculator, an immunization calendar, a medication reminder and medicine-safety information.

The company explains that the service, which is available in Lesotho in both English and Sesotho, also includes a rewards component through which subscribers can earn vouchers, music and lullabies.

“The Mum & Baby service provides positive socio-economic benefit in the geographies in which it operates. In a KPMG survey conducted in order to understand the impact of the Mum& Baby offer services over 95 percent of respondents reported that they found the SMS messages received useful or very useful for learning new information about their and their child/children’s health and wellbeing.

“Ninety-eight percent of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that they had taken actions to improve their child’s health as a result of the information provided through the Mum & Baby service and 98 percent of pregnant women and mothers surveyed agreed or strongly agreed that they had taken actions to improve their own health because of the information provided through the Mum & Baby service,” the statement read.