Adherence to harmful traditional newborn care practices
and neglecting to exclusively breastfeed were identified
as other matters to which Mobile Midwife attended.
For instance, the women used local herbs for cord care,
which often led to infections. A study in Uganda revealed
that Ugandan women also apply local herbs to care for
the umbilical cord (41). Proper hygienic cord care has
contributed to reduction of the burden of neonatal tetanus globally, from 600,000 in the 1990s to less than 60,000
in 2008 (42). Educating women residing in remote areas
on newborn care through the Mobile Midwife app is a
potentially powerful intervention that can further reduce
neonatal deaths. With regards to exclusive breastfeeding,
Thu et al. (43) reports breastfeeding benefits such as
reduction in postnatal infant deaths and improvement in
the child’s cognitive development. This further translates
into benefits in economic savings for the family, early
initiation of the child into school, and thus, an incremental
step into achieving MDG 2 achieving universal
primary education.