BebeApp

Wuqu' Kawoq | Maya Health Alliance

BebeApp

BebeApp provides individualized, evidence-based guidance to parents so that all children can reach their full development potential.

Tecpán, Chimaltenango

GTM

Nonprofit

Providing nurturing care to support optimal early childhood development is a pressing need globally. More than 40% of children under the age of five in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are at risk of not reaching their developmental potential due to factors such as malnutrition, poverty, and lack of early stimulation. This has substantial consequences, including lost human capital and increased costs to the health and education sectors. The estimated economic cost of suboptimal development over an individual life is 41,000 USD to 91,000 USD. Early childhood development interventions that are scalable in low-resource settings are urgently needed to reach the estimated 250 million children at risk. Unfortunately, most people living in LMICs have little to no access to early childhood development (ECD) services. ECD interventions are typically implemented by highly trained staff such as physicians or psychologists. Such an approach is not scalable in many LMICs due to staffing resource constraints and is a major barrier to bringing care to the hundreds of millions of children at risk of poor development. As a result, many children do not receive developmental support in their first years, a critical time for brain development, perpetuating intergenerational poverty.

BebeApp helps caregivers provide critical support for their children’s development by offering personalized, age-based recommendations for children under 2 years on feeding, sleep, and stimulating activities. The recommendations are adapted from evidence-based international guidelines from sources such as the World Health Organization and UNICEF. BebeApp is integrated with electronic medical records (EMR) via OpenMRS and SanaMobile, connecting caregivers directly to health workers. Caregivers can input data, such as feeding or sleep patterns, directly into the app. This input provides two revolutionary benefits: (1) a new technique to collect data on infant development and (2) a way for health workers to review data remotely and detect areas of concern early. BebeApp is one of the first interactive smartphone apps developed for a lower- and middle-income country setting that focuses on caregivers rather than health workers. This brings many advantages including enabling customized individualized guidance based on caregiver needs and interaction patterns, empowering caregivers to promote their children’s development, and facilitating and expediting interactions with health workers. Finally, the direct-to-caregiver approach, coupled with health worker back-up, is a potentially scalable solution to addressing infant development by extending the reach of health systems without placing additional demands on frontline workers.

We are implementing BebeApp in Guatemala’s central highlands as part of a randomized controlled trial funded by the National Institutes of Health (https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT06195358). The population served is predominantly Indigenous Maya, with high levels of poverty and one of the highest levels of stunting (failure to reach height potential) in the world. Our target population extends beyond rural Guatemala to the hundreds of millions of families worldwide who have no access to early childhood development (ECD) services. 43% of children under five in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are at risk of not reaching their developmental potential. These children are underserved because ECD interventions are not typically available due to their high cost. As a result, developmental delays go unnoticed and children in need do not get the additional support they require. Smartphones are now common even in rural areas of LMICs, allowing us to bring ECD services directly to caregivers. BebeApp fills an urgent need for ECD services in LMICs. During the first phase of our trial, we conducted qualitative interviews with caregivers and many stated that aside from their family, BebeApp was their only source of information on child development.