Participants attend the training on the use of a mobile application for measuring newborn growth during the pilot initiative under the Home-Based Newborn Care programme in Dimapur on March 12.
Dimapur, March 16 (MExN): Fifty Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) from Dimapur, Niuland and Chümoukedima districts were trained on the use of the Shishu Maapan App on March 12 as part of a pilot initiative under the Home-Based Newborn Care (HBNC) programme of the Department of Health & Family Welfare, Dimapur.
According to a press release from the IEC Bureau Section, Office of the Chief Medical Officer, Dimapur, the HBNC programme requires ASHAs to conduct several home visits to newborns until they are 42 days old. During these visits, ASHAs monitor the health of newborns by measuring weight, length and head circumference.
However, the release noted that accurate measurement can be difficult in resource-limited settings. To address this challenge, the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India, in partnership with Wadhwani AI, has launched the Shishu Maapan App to assist ASHAs in measuring newborns more accurately.
As part of the pilot project in Nagaland, 50 ASHAs from the three districts were selected and trained to use the application to support their HBNC visits. The pilot project aims to capture data on 1,000 newborns.
For the initiative, the selected ASHAs have been provided with weighing machines, head circumference measuring tapes, rulers and infantometers. The measurements collected during home visits will be uploaded to the Shishu Maapan App.
The release stated that as part of the training, the ASHAs also undertook field visits in Dhansiripar and Chümoukedima areas to test-run the application.
Resource persons for the training included Pamrichan Ragui, State Lead, Nagaland, Wadhwani AI; Anima Rawat, Senior AI Deployment Specialist; and Athar Khan, Product Analyst, Newborn Anthropometry.
Dr Kikameren Longkumer, State Programme Officer, NHM Nagaland, encouraged the ASHAs to utilize the App effectively to make their HBNC visits more productive, the release added.
