Summary of story from AlertNet, April 21, 2011

A new initiative to improve maternal health care was launched on Thursday by the Women’s Refugee Commission (WRC) and M4ID, a social media and development company.

The aim behind “Mama: Together for Safe Births in Crises” is to reduce maternal death and disability in crisis-affected settings by using social networking to open up new channels of communication.

Healthcare providers based in remote locations told the WRC that they use SMS text messaging as their main means of communication and also use Facebook fairly regularly.

But they don’t hear about the numerous campaigns and programmes working to reduce the staggering number of women who die each year in childbirth because they work in dangerous and isolated (often conflict-riven) areas.

The Mama initiative aims to connect frontline providers in disparate areas to one another and to give them access to training and advice from technical experts called Mama Mentors.

They will visit the virtual community on a monthly basis to share their medical expertise, professional development advice and words of encouragement.

Once a member of the Mama community, a health care provider is no longer alone. Instead, they will receive peer support and guidance in the easiest way possible.