The multimedia content on the app includes information on breastfeeding, complementary foods and pregnant and lactating mothers nutrition.
WHEELS Global Foundation and its Indian leg WHEELS Charitable Foundation India have developed a new app named ‘Maa-Shishu Aarogya App’ aka MARS.MSA, with an aim to assist Indian mothers, Anganwadi workers, ASHAs and ANMs, with information on breastfeeding, complementary feeding, and maternal nutrition.
According to a press release, the MARS.MSA app that was officially launched in India on January 30, 2018, was built with the partnership of Spoken Tutorial Project, IIT Bombay, and Sunrise Computer Software Pvt.
By providing information about correct breastfeeding practices, complementary feeding along with maternal nutrition for babies, the app aims at fulfilling its goal to reduce the infant mortality rate in India.
Developed with multimedia content curated by the WHEELS Foundation and IIT Bombay, under the leadership of Professor Kannan Moudglaya of Department of Chemical Engineering, the application is being made available in different Indian languages such as English, Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Gujarati.
The multimedia content on the app includes information on breastfeeding, complementary foods and pregnant and lactating mothers nutrition.
“Exclusive breastfeeding is the first cut solution to malnutrition in India, with the consequential benefit of increasing the GDP by several percentage points,” says Prof. Moudgalya. According to a study by media agency Zenith, India is estimated to have 530 million smartphone users in 2018. The creation of the app (and its usage through smartphones) helps fulfill WGF’s motto: ‘Technology Enabled Philanthropy.’ WGF believes that technology can be the catalyst to alleviate some of the challenges faced in rural regions, across India.
The statement by the organization said that the contents in the app were developed by Dr. Rupal Dalal, who is specialist in child nutrition and development.
The Internationally Board-Certified Lactation Consultant has monitored more than 10,000 children under 5 years of age and has set up the FMCH & SMDT Community Nutrition Intervention Model in Maharashtra, India.
The COO of WHEELS Charitable Foundation (WCF) Satyajit Kulkarni said, “The app will show mothers Spoken Tutorials for correct latching and breastfeeding techniques, complementary feeding, guidelines for maternal nutrition, breastfeeding conditions & difficulties, reading growth charts and other such important topics.”
This multimedia content in the app, which is currently available to download via Android Play, has been developed by IIT alumnus Uday M. Mehta of Sunrise Computer Software Pvt. Ltd. The content is integrated on ‘Maa-Shishu Aarogya’ Interactive Mobile App, an integral part of an experiential learning platform called ‘Maharishi Augmented Reality System – MARS.’
Founded by the alumni of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) WHEELS Global Foundation (WGF) headquartered in Fairfax County, Virginia, is an independent 501c3, a non-profit organization that is a pioneer in applying technology to provide solutions to issues related with water, health, energy, education, livelihood, and sustainability. The organization partners with other national and international NGO’s and non-profit organizations, working in collaboration to aid a larger rural population globally.