MIRA Channel (Women Mobile Lifeline Channel)

Many women in low-resource settings in India face barriers to accessing maternal and newborn health services, resulting in high maternal and infant mortality rates.

This program utilizes the extensive mobile phone networks in India to enable women to more easily access health information through a mobile phone application. The information comes in the form of rich-iconic interactive toolkits, calculators, and trackers such as pregnancy week-by-week tracker, immunization-tracker, menstrual-cycle calculator, family planning tracker, and infection-prevention toolkit. MIRA uses iconic messaging, supported with micro-audio messages in local language, making it an interactive talking toolkit designed so that it is easily understandable for users. The application connects women with health services for timely delivery and supports them to go for regular antenatal checkups, take Iron-Folic acid, and seek timely vaccination for children. A team of trained social workers with MIRA travels door to door in communities to provide educational health outreach and awareness about the application.

As of 2014, 130,000+ women have used MIRA. There has been an increase in ANC visits by 14%, overall resulting in a reduction of Maternal Mortality Rates and Infant Mortality Rates in the project areas. Additionally, there has been a 16% increase in immunization rate of children 0-5 years and a 9% increase in institutional delivery.