The South African arm of the Mobile Alliance for Maternal Action (MAMA) offers a range of mobile services to mothers as it attempts to reach scale in the country, explains Joanne Stevens, mhealth consultant with the organisation.

These include a community portal that offers social-networking style support to pregnant women who discover they are HIV positive.  The portal is designed to support those women who test positive for HIV in a country where it is still a difficult subject to discuss with friends and family. The portal enables women to speak with other women who have previously come to terms with testing HIV positive.

Another mobile service offered by MAMA is using SMS to deliver health advice to pregnant women.

“We build for the technology they have not what we would like them to have,” says Stevens. She was speaking during a call to highlight the key themes including scale and sustainability that will feature in next week’s GSMA-mHealth Alliance Mobile Health Summit.

Other participants included Colin Abouchabki, COO, Praekelt Foundation and Chris Locke, Managing Director, Development Fund at GSMA.