It helps in reducing medical complications and achieving a positive pregnancy experience
Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee (IIT Roorkee) researchers have developed ‘SwasthGarbh’ smartphone app for providing antenatal care and real-time medical support to pregnant women. The 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 as it is available on the Google Play Store.
Congratulating the researchers, Prof. 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 Prof. Deepak Sharma from the Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering, IIT Roorkee, along with Prof. Vatsla Dadhwal and Prof. Aparna Sharma from AIIMS, Delhi, developed ‘SwasthGarbh,’ an interactive platform to promote prenatal care which is holistic in its outlook and patient-centered.
It assists pregnant women by ensuring timely antenatal care visits, recording every clinical test and improving medication adherence.
Elaborating on the research, Prof. Sharma said, “As higher Neonatal Mortality Rate is an alarming concern, SwasthGarbh Mobile App will provide real-time medical support to all pregnant women and improve maternal-fetal health. This is a gift from IIT Roorkee to all the women in India/World and will help us to move forward in the Prime Minister’s Atmanirbhar Swasth Bharat mission.”
Highlighting the utility of the app Prof. 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 app has been designed
- for assisting pregnant women with hospital visits, in terms of when they are due and what tests are required
- to keep a record of clinical tests and symptoms
- for sending automatic notifications to the doctor and patient in case any parameter cross the normal range or any danger sign is present
- for posting customised notifications to an individual, a group, or all patients
- for apprising the women of precautionary advice during any pandemic using easily understandable videos
- to support several international languages
- most importantly, it enables two-way communication between patient and doctor for real-time medical assistance