To have a better understanding of how mHealth and maternal health in Uganda could be done, along with maternal health-related barriers seen in Uganda, Tumuhimbise et al. (2020) recognise areas that the maternal health sector need significant improvement and these improvements could be obtained with the use of mHealth.
Members: Ho Kiu Coco Lee , Ashley Wakeling, Graham Kandere & Chantel Ashman Supervisors: Emmanuel Oumo & Sebastian Dittgen
Background
The fertility rate in Uganda remains sky-scraping at the same time positively associated with the infant and maternal mortality rate. Whereas Uganda as a developing country, tackling public health issues with limited resources is a complication to the government or any helping parties. Getting into the era of technology, mobile health is an idea to maximise the functions of available resources and attain the best efficiency in medical services. Targeting the women in Uganda, we aim to reveal how the implementation of mHealth can improve maternal health-related issues, particularly in reducing the infant and maternal mortality rate through refining medical services, education, and filling the gaps of insufficient resources.
Following the motto of “Listen, Think, Act”, we listened to speakers and read literature in order to obtain a sector of focus for mHealth. Thinking was done by extensive research in order to get a full understanding of Uganda's health care when it comes to maternal health and infants. Acting is now the current step - action is being done by the writing of this research paper and a presentation to the fellows and leaders in order to get the research and ideas out into the world. This article starts off with our literature review, followed by ideas to combat maternal and infant mortality rate, and suggestions on how to implement mHealth into Uganda.
Literature review
2.1. Statistics on maternal and infant health in Uganda
The following information and statistics on maternal and infant healthcare in Uganda will come from the documentation of UNICEF (United Nations Children Fund). In 2015, 1.7 million babies were born in Uganda. Approximately 81 babies will die each day before reaching their first month of life and 96 stillbirths will occur each day.
Uganda's neonatal mortality rate (NMR) is 19 deaths per 1,000 births. In rural locations the NMR is 30 deaths per 1,000 live births. Some of the largest causes for neonatal deaths are birth asphyxia, prematurity, sepsis, congenital anomalies, acute respiratory infections, injuries, and tetanus. The maternal mortality ratio is 343 deaths per 100,000 live births. The national estimate for family planning satisfied by modern methods is 40.5%. The national estimate for antenatal care coverage at least four times is 47.6%. The national estimate of having a skilled attendant at delivery is 58%. The national estimate of institutional deliveries is 57.4%. The national estimate for postnatal care of mothers within two days of giving birth is 33%. It is also worth noting that there are staggering differences in care for infants in urban and rural regions of Uganda. In urban areas postnatal care of newborns within two days is 20.9% compared to rural regions at 9.1%. In urban areas newborns weighed at birth is 86.4%, compared to rural regions at 44.6%. In urban areas birth registration is marked at 38%, compared to rural regions at 28.7%. Also, women giving birth by the age of eighteen in urban areas is 23.7% compared to rural regions marked at 36.2%.
It is vital to include this information due to the statistics being dramatically low in care and dramatically high in health issues and mortality. It is also important to note the extreme difference in the urban and rural regions when it comes to maternal and infant health. These extreme differences in urban and rural regions can be due to many factors such as lack of transportation to medical facilities, lack of wealth to afford health care, lack of access to education, lack of medical facilities, and lack of medical staff. UNICEF also includes the importance of education, noting that educated women tend to fall into better statistics than uneducated women. Overall, these alarming statistics on maternal and infant health care lead us to focus on this topic and explore the possibility of mHealth changing these statistics.
