Frequently asked questions

Maternity Foundation is a Danish development organization that aims to reduce maternal and newborn mortality in developing countries. With the vision ‘No woman should die giving life’, Maternity Foundation works to empower and mobilize women to seek care, to build capacity of and train health practitioners to ensure that more women give birth with skilled birth attendance. In our own Maternal and Newborn Health Program in Ethiopia, we work with local partners in the capacity building of health care workers and empowering the community to seek care.

Maternity Foundation has established itself as a recognized player in the mobile health field with innovative solutions such as The Safe Delivery App and a SMS service (LUCY) for pregnant women in Ethiopia.

App Store: The App can be downloaded for iPhones and iPads.
Google Play: The App can be downloaded for devices using Android.

Find link to downloads here.

The App is free for download.

Costs will naturally occur related to implementation such as trainings and/or administration similar to other project implementations.

Yes. It is not a requirement to have internet connection to view the videos and other features of the App once it has been downloaded. In other words, internet is only needed upon download.

Yes. In settings with no or weak internet connectivity the App can be pre-installed to the devices by downloading it as an APK file and transferred from a computer directly to the phone/tablet or via Bluetooth between two phones. However, you will need internet for the initial download. Contact the mHealth Competency Center for more information and support.

Maternity Foundation collects data on the App’s usage. This helps us achieve knowledge about user patterns to improve the App according to user needs. We therefor ask everybody using the App to kindly share their GPS location.

The App is currently used in more than 40 countries and rolled-out in partnership with Ministries of Health, UN agencies, professional organizations and non-governmental organizations with focus on low- and middle-income countries. Maternity Foundation’s mHealth Competency Center based in Copenhagen supports partners with implementation tools and resources, adaptive learning methods and trainings. The Competency Center consolidates and disseminates learnings and results across the different implementation settings and contexts. See more in Cases and Results.

The App was reviewed by a panel of leading, international experts within maternal and neonatal health and mHealth, and has undergone a systematic clinical review process in 2016 for a global update based on the newest WHO guidelines.

No, not as a starting point. As Basic Emergency Obstetric and Neonatal Care is a specific set of medical interventions based on global guidelines, Maternity Foundation and the university partners will maintain this focus. This way, we ensure that skilled birth attendants can quickly navigate in the App’s features and access in emergency situations. However, Maternity Foundation has developed an animated instructive film on Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) which is available in English and can be added to the App.

Maternity Foundation collaborates with organizations and Ministries with resources to translate and adapt the App into local languages and country versions.

The most recent WHO content alignment is crucial to the integrity of our App and to setting a high standard of care for women. Nevertheless, we recognize that causes of maternal and neonatal mortality and thus that protocols and treatments vary from setting to setting. Maternity Foundation is therefore willing to discuss with ministries and departments of health how to make our content relevant and impactful for specific settings and in-line with national protocols.

We believe that there are many elements of the App that are useful to incorporate into Basic Emergency Obstetric and Neonatal Care training, depending on your need and setting. We are happy to provide examples and think through this with you. However, if you decide you want to use the videos only, we are open to dialogue with you about this and are open to providing them depending on the circumstances and with clear understanding of copy right and usage agreements.

We do not permit logos of partners to be displayed in the App. The only branding currently is in the “About” button, to recognize the work of those who developed the App. We want to keep the App non-branded so it is universally applicable and accessible to all who use it; potential exceptions are in the case of the national ministry of health for national scale-up.

Implementing the App is and should be low cost. The App is free for download, and as long as the relevant technical infrastructure is in place – either the skilled birth attendants have their own smart phone or tablet or the clinic/program provides a smart phone or tablet – costs for use and implementation are low.

The Competency Center provides support to partners in the form of training resources and staff time. We do not have the ability in most cases to provide funding or technical hardware.

However, the Competency Center may dialogue with partners on applying to co-funding, and prioritizes utilizing any funding that may be available for use in high-impact implementations of the App at nationally led scale.

Yes. To assess the health workers’ progress, the App contains two testing modules. One tests the health workers’ confidence level before and after using the App, and another tests the health worker’s level of knowledge. Furthermore, the use of the App and its different functions are tracked and combined with GPS coordinates so it is possible to track the use of the App wherever in the world it is located. The Competency Center monitors usage data and can offer partners a consolidation of reports.

The Competency Center conducts a knowledge assessment in form of a questionnaire at baseline and at follow-up which is based on clinical case scenarios. Skills assessment in form of Objective Structured Assessment of Technical Skills (OSATS) is available upon request. The OSATS gives health workers scenarios they are then asked to manage in form of a role-play to show what they would do in the actual clinical situation, using what they find available during the assessment. The OSATS, however, is only conducted in projects where time and resources are allocated for this.

Furthermore, the Competency Center has formulated different data collection and method guides such as interviews and focus groups on usage, perception and integration and level of acceptance of the App with health care workers; interviews of if the App was used during delivery (from clients). These resources can be shared with partners and interested parties.