Project Lead(s): Ri-hua Xie
Issue
An estimated 4,700 preventable maternal deaths and 63,000 infant deaths occur annually in China, mainly due to lack of information on availability of maternal and child health services.
Solution
The project used mobile text messaging, in an attempt reduce maternal and infant deaths in remote rural areas in China.
The project used World Health Organization (WHO) education material to develop mobile phone text messages to target pregnant women in remote rural areas in China.
In a randomized controlled trial, 11,386 pregnant women were recruited to an intervention group with mobile phone text messaging, while 11,904 pregnant women served as a control group, receiving usual care at their first prenatal visits.
Outcomes were collected for 3,915 subjects in the intervention group and 3,667 subjects in the control group, to evaluate the differences in pregnancy and birth outcomes.
Outcome
The results showed that using the mobile text messages resulted in changes in women’s behaviour, attitudes and knowledge, and practices towards pregnancy, delivery and postpartum care.
The effectiveness of maternal education through text messaging in this project was as follows:
- The stillbirth rate was significantly lower in the intervention group than in the control group (1.07% versus 1.89%);
- The neonatal mortality rate was significantly lower in the intervention group: 17.54% versus 30% in the control group.
- The maternal mortality rate was lower in the intervention group (1/1,000) than in the control group (1.4 /1,000), even though this difference was not statistically significant
The biggest challenge with the project was that the study period was too short and follow-up could not be completed because many of the pregnant women in the study had not yet given birth.
Once follow-up on this group is complete, the study team plans to explore the effectiveness of text messaging in other maternity and infant care fields, such as infant vaccination.