IIT Roorkee and AIIMS Delhi have developed an app to assist pregnant women
New Delhi:
The Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee (IIT Roorkee) researchers have developed a ‘SwasthGarbh’ smartphone App to provide antenatal care and real-time medical support to pregnant women. The app, IIT Roorkee said, can be a vital tool for women in rural areas and those who do not have easy access to doctors. This is the first pregnancy App that provides instant access to doctor’s advice and is clinically endorsed as well as credible, IIT Roorkee added.
The SwasthGarbh Mobile App has been developed in collaboration with the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi. Both patients and doctors can avail the benefits of the App free of cost. The app is available on the Google Play Store.
As per the IIT Roorkee statement, the app assists pregnant women by ensuring timely antenatal care visits, recording every clinical test and improving medication adherence. A research paper highlighting the benefits of SwasthGarbh App has been published in the peer-reviewed IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics.
Congratulating the researchers, Professor KK Pant, Director, IIT Roorkee, said: “The utility of telemedicine in healthcare has been brought to the forefront by the COVID-19 pandemic. The smartphone, with over one billion users worldwide, has tremendous potential to transform the field of medical sciences and improve healthcare.”
More apps are used in pregnancy than in any other field of medicine but these provide only pregnancy-related information and lack the involvement of clinicians. Hence, to cater to this requirement, Sahil Sharma and Professor Deepak Sharma from the Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering, IIT Roorkee, and Professor Vatsla Dadhwal and Professor Aparna Sharma from AIIMS, Delhi, have developed ‘SwasthGarbh.’ The app is an interactive platform to promote prenatal care which is holistic in its outlook and patient-centered.
Highlighting the utility of the App Professor Rama Chaudhry, Dean (Research), AIIMS New Delhi, said, “SwasthGarbh App will be quite useful for providing potential solutions to common problems in pregnancy. Our goal is to make the SwasthGarbh App reach every household of our country and thus save precious maternal-fetal lives.”
The clinical assessment of 150 patients demonstrated the utility of the App in improving the quality of antenatal care and reducing complications. The patients registered on the App showed a significantly higher number of mean antenatal visits and better compliance with the WHO guidelines. It also helps in better counseling of patients regarding the formulation of birth plans and the management of physiological problems encountered in pregnancy. This is the first pregnancy App that provides real-time medical assistance in case of an emergency.
The App has been designed to assist pregnant women with hospital visits, in terms of when they are due and what tests are required and to keep a record of clinical tests and symptoms. The app will also send automatic notifications to the doctor and patient in case any parameter crosses the normal range or any danger sign is present.
As per the institute statement, the app will also post customized notifications to an individual, a group, or all patients and apprise the women of precautionary advice during any pandemic using easily understandable videos.
The benefits of the App increase further during pandemic situations when patients are afraid to visit hospitals due to the risk of catching coronavirus infection, or are unable to do so due to country-wide lockdowns or movement restrictions, it added.
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