MeSSSSage
Although postpartum care is important for newborn and maternal health, few women, especially in India, receive the adequate numbers of postnatal visits. Cultural practices that require women to stay in the home for a certain period postpartum, as are pervasive in India, add additional challenges to seeking postnatal care outside of the home. Thus, women are isolated without resources for information, as well as social support from other new mothers, potentially leading to increase postpartum depression. With our partners, we are developing a mobile information and social support group for postpartum women in rural Punjab, India, to help overcome this barrier, called MeSSSSage (Maa Shishu Swasthya Sahayak Samooh, which roughly translates to groups to support mothers with health related topics). This 2 year project has 2 phases, one starting in November 2020 to develop the intervention via a pre-pilot, community engaged design, and then a 6 month feasibility and acceptability pitot starting around April 2021.