Impact of Mobile Telephone on Maternal Health Service Care: A Case of Njoro Division

Abstract

Every minute a woman dies due to pregnancy related complications\rglobally, and half of these deaths occur in the developing countries. Despite\rknowing the main causes of these deaths, maternal mortality has remained high\respecially in Sub-Saharan Africa with 536,000 deaths annually. One of the main\rchallenges is access to maternal health services. This study aims at assessing\rwhether mobile telephone will improve uptake of selected maternal health services\rby expectant mothers at Njoro and Nessuit Health centers in Njoro Division,\rNakuru. A total of 397 women were recruited between April 2012 and July 2012 and\rrandomly categorized into two groups for follow up. One group of 191 women were\rroutinely given prompts and advice about their health and scheduled visits\rwhile the other group of 206 women were allowed to continue with routine antenatal\rvisits with no mobile telephone support. The results show 7.4% of those\rfollowed up had less than 4 antenatal visits while 18.6% of those not followed\rup had less than 4 visits P value 0.002 which shows there was a significantly\rhigher proportion of women on follow up who had more than 4 antenatal visits. There\rwas a significantly higher proportion of women on follow up who received diet\rand place of delivery counseling, malarial prophylaxis, iron and vitamin supplements\rand deworming drugs. There was however no difference in those who received\rtetanus toxoid and HIV counseling. 88.0% of the cases on follow up gave birth\rin a hospital as compared to 72.8% of those not on follow up with a P value of\r0.000 which indicates strong association. Overall hospital delivery was 80.1%\rfor this group a value much higher than national figures of 44%. Women provided\rwith mobile telephone support are more likely to follow the scheduled antenatal\radvice and use the services as recommended than those who do not receive any\rsupport. Therefore mobile telephone should be used routinely to improve\rantenatal service uptake and communication with health providers.