Over the years, women have miscarried and lost their newborns due to lack of knowledge. Common cases of lack of vital information include skipping vaccinations and a lack of understanding of the growth and different stages of the baby in the womb. This is often made worse if there is no clinic nearby where expectant or new mothers can seek professional help.
A family tragedy pushed Felix Kimaru to develop a platform for providing parents with relevant information and advice through text messaging. His innovation empowers parents and expectant mothers with crucial information, such as signs to look for at certain times, illness symptoms, and gives guidance through out a child’s growth until the age of five.
Dubbed Totohealth, the platform sends mothers two text messages a week – one tailored towards the health of the child, and the other towards the health of the mother. The messages sent are depend on the specific cycle an expectant mother. Speaking to City Biz, the CEO, Kimaru, explained how the idea to start Totohealth came about after his aunt lost her life and twins during childbirth.
“She didn’t know when she was going to deliver and was living upcountry,” said Kimaru.
Having worked as a volunteer at an institution dealing with children with cerebral palsy, Kimaru realised that preventive interventions for such children would have been made, had the defects been detected early. “So, I developed a system that advises mothers on the normal development of a child,” said Kimaru.
Totohealth tracks the development of a child and keeps expectant mothers abreast with what’s happening and what to expect from five weeks of pregnancy. The system sends a text message every Monday and Thursday.
“In the case of an unborn baby, for example, it would inform the expectant mother when the child would start and stop kicking. When the child is not kicking, we tell you what to do, depending on the response you give. There are other things like what food to eat, what drugs not to take, and how a mother’s body reacts during pregnancy,” said Kimaru.
The computer science graduate from Maseno University said his joy is seeing the response his invention has received. “We invested around $3,000 (approximately Sh300,000), which we have since recouped since we started in March last year,” revealed Kimaru.
The system is free to the end user. He explained that they have partnered with the Ministry of Health and only charge county governments and partnering NGOs (non-governmental organisations). Hospitals, he said, have been very receptive towards the idea.
“We allow hospitals, NGOs in maternal health and the Ministry of Health to send SMS campaigns such anti-polio and anti-malaria campaigns, as well as creating awareness on reproductive health. We charge them a fee for every campaign SMS sent out,” explained Kimaru.
The company also allows NGOs and district health teams to send educational health information and surveys to volunteers, who provide the information to households they are mandated to reach.
Totohealth emerged the overall winner of Innovations Awards hosted by Connected East Africa in April this year. With more than 6,000 Kenyan parents registered on the platform, the future can only be brighter.
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