How #BellaNaijaMCM Dr Abiodun Adereni is Tackling Maternal & Child Mortality with HelpMum

According to UNICEF, “Every single day, Nigeria loses about 2,300 children under five and 145 women of childbearing age. This makes the country the second largest contributor to the under–five and maternal mortality rate in the world.” Every 10 minutes, one woman dies on account of pregnancy or childbirth in Nigeria, the report said.

There’s a reason why: Women who live in rural, underserved and deprived communities in Nigeria do not have access to safe and hygienic delivery due to lack of public health facilities, lack of clean birth kits and lack of adequate health information. They do not present their children for immunization at appropriate times thereby resulting in the death of these children before they reach the age of 4

Our #BellaNaijaMCM this week Dr Abiodun Adereni wants to change that. In 2017, Abiodun started HelpMum to tackle maternal and infant mortality in remote rural areas in Nigeria. HelpMum provides clean birth kits for hygienic delivery to pregnant women and provides immunization reminders and health information to nursing mothers. It has reached 27,000+ pregnant women and nursing mothers with the HelpMum Clean Birth and vaccination tracking system.

HelpMum uses the power of mobile technology and low cost innovation to deliver lifesaving health information to pregnant women on their mobile phones, provide clean birth kits for women in deprived and underserved communities, remind women of their children’s vaccination appointments through its vaccination tracking system and train community birth attendants using its E-Learning platform by providing HelpMum free mobile tablets.

Abiodun is a 2017 alumnus of the Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Program (TEEP). In 2018, HelpMum was one of the three winners of the inaugural Google Impact Challenge. Abiodun is a 2018/19 LEAP Africa Social Innovators Programme fellow.

In 2020, Abiodun’s HelpMum was one of the 77 groups selected by Facebook for its Community Accelerator program in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Abiodun holds a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree from the University of Ibadan and a certificate in Entrepreneurship Management from the Enterprise Development Centre of Lagos Business School.

We celebrate Abiodun for his commitment to preventing maternal and child mortality in Nigeria and we’re rooting for him!