Strengthening Maternal and Infant Care through GenAI Mobile Messaging

Nearly 1.3 million children under the age of 5 die every year in South Asia. Maternal mortality in the region is also high. Many of these deaths could be averted through improved health practices in the home and community. Key information on infant care, vaccination, preventive care, and danger signs can be lifesaving, especially for low-income families. And yet, under-resourced health systems can be challenged to communicate such information effectively. In India, the average time a public primary care physician spends conveying care instructions to a patient is less than 2.5 minutes, and in Bangladesh, it is less than one minute.

Noora Health, a global nonprofit, partners with government health systems to deliver critical health information to new mothers and their caregivers in maternity ward hallways and waiting rooms. Noora Health also recruits families to receive perinatal care guidance through their phones via messaging with the mobile Care Companion Program (mCCP). Increasingly, mCCP has connected with families who might not otherwise be able to access the public health system. The program’s efficacy has been demonstrated through a randomized trial conducted by Digital Medic at the Stanford Center for Health Education in collaboration with Noora Health researchers, which found significant improvement in neonatal and maternal health practices at six weeks postpartum.

With demand high, mCCP is stretching to accommodate a growing user base. Across India, Bangladesh, and Indonesia, a 20-person medical support team processes around 10,000 messages in eight languages daily—classifying queries, searching the knowledge bank, assessing risk, and triaging the response, in a time-consuming process susceptible to error.  

To overcome these challenges, Noora Health aims to use generative AI to adapt and automate routine interactions in multiple languages, allowing Noora Health support staff to focus on complex cases requiring human input and achieve greater reach. However, careful evaluation is essential to ensure that the GenAI platform is accurate, ethically deployed, and capable of preserving and enhancing the health benefits currently achieved through the traditional mCCP.

With Stage 2 funding from Stanford Impact Labs, Noora Health and the Stanford Center for Health Education’s Digital Medic initiative are continuing their partnership to study the impact of integrating AI into mCCP on response time, user experiences, health-related behaviors, and health outcomes. The goal is to ensure the effectiveness of a platform that can be scaled to reach millions more families in low-resource regions of South Asia, saving lives through robust and timely health education.