"Pregnancy can be heavy." This slogan can be found scattered over walls and tables inside waiting rooms in Pathfinder Nigeria health facilities. Information about askNivi and contact instructions accompany colorful, comforting imagery and enticing text geared toward expecting mothers and their partners. “Let us support you on your journey,” it says — and patients are responding. What they don’t know, however, is that this is Nivi’s largest chat program to date.
48 weeks of content — that’s what a soon-to-be parent can expect when onboarding. 32 weeks of engaging antenatal content, beginning week 10 of pregnancy and continuing through 15 weeks of postnatal support. 96 sets of messages, 8 antenatal healthcare visit reminders, 4 postnatal healthcare visit reminders, an equal number of visit assessments, and 4 user satisfaction surveys await users that message our Nigeria chatbot on WhatsApp with specific Pathfinder keywords.
While the program serves as a facility assessment review, the most innovative part of Nivi’s pregnancy guidance — AKA our ANC/PNC Program — is that individual users are relayed messages and information that are specifically timed and tailored to their personal, current circumstances. This feat is accomplished in the onboarding process, during which users are asked for their estimated date of delivery; subsequently prompting messages that accurately reflect the user’s specific healthcare needs of their specific stage of pregnancy.
Weekly, gender-neutral messages consist of everything from general health care advice to important gestational updates, vaccination requirements, breastfeeding guidance, maternal and neonatal nutritional needs, and pregnancy and newborn danger signs. All in all, the program serves as a complete pregnancy journey handhold — a friendly yet informative companion to users experiencing humanity’s most necessary yet neglected of physiological processes: reproduction.
Trans-creation of the ANC/PNC program to other askNivi operational countries is currently underway. We look forward to involving current and future stakeholders in our rapidly-developing maternal, newborn, and child health content!
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