Digital Didi Changing Mindsets, Practices and Narratives
Mohini, a resident of Saidanpur, Uttar Pradesh, is a housewife. Due to her husband’s busy schedule she was unable to get regular checkups during her pregnancy. Pooja Devi, one of the DEF’s Soochnapreneurs, with her smartphone and internet met her and the first thing she did was to link her to the maternity benefit program me – Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana. It is a conditional cash transfer scheme for pregnant and lactating women of 19 years of age or above for the first live birth.
It provides partial wage compensation to women for wage-loss during childbirth and childcare and to provide conditions for safe delivery and good nutrition and feeding practices. Under – nutrition continues to adversely affect majority of women in India, every third woman is undernourished and every second woman is anaemic. An undernourished mother almost inevitably gives birth to a low birth weight baby. When poor nutrition starts in – utero, it extends throughout the life cycle since the changes are largely irreversible. Also, socio-economic conditions force the women to work till the last days of their pregnancy and immediately resume work after child birth. Thus, Pooja Devi, after linking Mohini to the scheme, made sure that she was taking care of her health and gave her calcium tablets. She also accompanied her for the checkups. She gave birth to a healthy baby girl and Pooja Devi explained her about post-natal care as well.
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