UNFPA and Organon support the Maternity Foundation in using AI to strengthen midwifery skills

Globally almost 300,000 women and 2.4 million newborns die during childbirth or from pregnancy complications every year. Yet with the support of trained midwives, the majority of these deaths could be prevented. UNFPA, the UN sexual and reproductive health agency, and Organon are supporting the Maternity Foundation in strengthening midwifery knowledge and skills in low-resource settings by integrating a new AI-powered service to their Safe Delivery app.

About the Safe Delivery app:

The Safe Delivery app is a professional job aid and training tool for midwives and other health-care workers in low-resource settings. The app was conceptualized by the Denmark-based Maternity Foundation, Copenhagen University and the University of Southern Denmark to provide guidance on how to handle birth and the most common complications through animated videos and descriptions of procedures, among other features.

To date, the Maternity Foundation’s free Safe Delivery app has reached more than 375,000 healthcare workers and helped ensure millions of safer births globally. Now with a new AI-powered smartbot, health workers will be able to ask questions and receive up-to-date, evidence-based answers related to birth and pregnancy, making it easier to quickly access the necessary information. The AI service was developed by Neuvo Inc. Global and consists of a conversational smartbot called NeMa, which will be integrated into the Safe Delivery app. The answers provided by the smartbot are based on scientifically verified and audited clinical material provided by Maternity Foundation, using information vetted by UNFPA and the World Health Organization (WHO) and with all responses verified by Neuvo Inc. Global and the Maternity Foundation.

“The Maternity Foundation has been the front-runner in terms of leveraging technology for development for more than ten years,” said Anna Frellsen, CEO at the Maternity Foundation. “We have used mobile technology to reach and support health-care workers in some of the world’s poorest and most fragile settings since 2012. Exploring ways to best build AI into our solutions and programmes is a natural next step, and we are truly excited about the partnership with and support from Neuvo Inc, UNPFA and Organon.”

Long-term collaboration with the Maternity Foundation

A large group of women sit in an auditorium. — Participants of the Save Deliver App pilot programme in Punjab, India.

The Maternity Foundation and UNFPA have been working together since 2016 to empower midwives to provide quality maternal and newborn health care by scaling up the Safe Delivery app and programme. Today, they are working together in more than ten countries across sub-Saharan Africa and southeast Asia and have plans to expand their collaboration into North Africa, the Middle East and Latin America.

The first pilot of the Safe Delivery app with the integrated AI smartbot will take place in Punjab in India around September of 2023 and will include doctors, nurses and specialists. The pilot testing will be done in collaboration with the health authorities of the National Health Mission in Punjab, with the hope of making the smartbot function available on a greater scale.

Strategic partnership with Organon

Two individuals - a man and a woman - sit at a table outdoors and sign paperwork. — Geralyn Ritter, Executive Vice President of Organon and Ian McFarlane, Director of the Division of Communications and Strategic Partnerships at UNFPA, signing the global MoU.

Organon and UNFPA share a vision of powering a world where the health of women and girls is prioritized and fulfilled. On the sidelines of the Women Deliver 2023 conference in Kigali, Rwanda, Organon and UNFPA signed a memorandum of understanding and launched a joint initiative to accelerate progress toward UNFPA’s transformative goals and reduce unplanned pregnancies globally, with a particular focus on young people. The initiative is a key aspect of “Her Plan is Her Power,” a three-year effort by Organon to accelerate progress when it comes to unplanned pregnancy. The global collaboration represents a portfolio of approaches in three areas: Innovation, access and education, and sustainability and financing.

“Organon is proud to partner with UNFPA to accelerate progress toward our goals and reduce unplanned pregnancies globally,” said Geralyn Ritter, Executive Vice President of Organon. “We’re pleased to support this effort by bringing more family planning resources and education to skilled birth attendants in low-resource settings. Working together to empower health-care workers with information, we believe we will have a positive impact.”