The Nigerian Female-led Startup Building Parental Solutions For Pregnant Women Across Africa
July 5, 2022, 2:34 p.m.
Reports by international organizations, including WHO and the United Nations, have identified African countries like Nigeria as one of the most dangerous places in the world to give birth citing poor maternal health education and inadequate access to healthcare professionals, among others, as part of the leading causes. Here is where two smart African women come in.
Called Adeloye Olanrewaju and Kemi Olawoye, the Nigerian female-led startup has launched Babymigo, the fastest-growing pregnancy and parenting community platform.
The parenting platform aims to improve maternal and child health outcomes across Africa. Launched in 2018, Babymigo is a community-based platform that provides expecting mums and parents across Africa with expert-led information, tools and resources, community support, and concierge services relating to pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting.
The babymigo founders birthed the idea from an undying desire to leverage technology and innovative solutions to empower and equip expecting mothers and parents across Africa with culturally relevant information to make their parenting journey seamless.
"My co-founder and I come from healthcare backgrounds. We realized during our early career days that a mother's need for community, localized content, and hyperlocal support services carefully curated and adapted to the African context," Kemi, CEO, said in the interview.
"Years ago, I worked as a Physiotherapist in a private hospital in Nigeria and led the women's health unit of the department. During this time, I interacted with several pregnant women who constantly shared their challenges with me. These challenges included untimely access to trained medical personnel, lack of culturally relevant health information, resources and tools, and inadequate hyper-local support services, among several others."
"So we designed the platform to allow users to ask and receive questions from experts, consult with doctors remotely regardless of location, access tools including the immunization calendar, among several others."
Furthermore, users can access over 30 community groups specific to interest areas, filter for specific discussions, and search for users or mothers within a particular age group or location on the platform.
Kemi Olawoye, CEO
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In addition, the platform allows users to book appointments just as it provides information about events and pregnancy classes. Plus, there is access to a plethora of articles and resources about child care and pregnancy. It is an all-in-one package for mothers and parents across Africa.
Upon sign up, new users are asked for basic biodata information and parenting category for personalization - pregnant, trying to conceive, and parents. Old users can simply login with an existing email address and password to access and enjoy the platform.
Babymigo recently went through an upgrade to include new and improved features. This consists of a more user-friendly and engaging feed specially curated for individual mothers. It also includes chatting features, allowing users to interact directly with subject matter experts.
Also, users can access a wealth of articles and resources daily on motherhood, child care, pregnancy, and parenting.
Since its inception, Babymigo has registered over 250,000 users and reached over one million parents across multiple locations in Nigeria, including vulnerable women in hard-to-reach areas, and we are only just getting started. Babymigo currently operates in Nigeria with active plans to expand to other countries.
“Impact has also been a key metric for us. As a company, our greatest joy comes from moms and parents who continue to share the life-changing impact of our platform on their parenting journey.”
“Early in the year, we launched Mamacare, a maternity plan that offers expecting mums up to 40% discount off antenatal, child delivery, and baby care costs at more than 120 partner hospitals across Nigeria.
Specific benefits include consultations, antenatal, delivery (vaginal and Caesarean section), laboratory and diagnostic services for mother and baby, private ward admission, postpartum care, immunization, and other baby care services up until the child is.”
“More recently, we launched Pregg Class, a digital antenatal care program for pregnant women designed to support the antenatal hospital experience with weekly live classes, hands-on experts, 24hours access to professionals, community support, practical sessions, and so much more.”
“Over the next few months, we will focus on consolidating and improving these products with plans to receive funding and acquire partnerships,” Olawoye shared.
In addition to user growth and impact, the female founders have recorded several recognitions by international and local organizations, including Google, the US Department of State, Facebook, and Time Magazine, among several others.
tag: Africa, Babymigo, Female Entrpreneurs, Startup, Nigeria, black women, women in tech, women in business,
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Verny loves to write poetry, fiction and quotes. Her love for writing landed her in journalism. She loves gadgets and travelling to explore new places.