ShishuPoshan application: ICT to solve issues of high social importance by scaled behavior change

Breastfeeding is one of the best interventions that can bring down child mortality considerably. It could prevent nearly half of all diarrhea episodes and one-third of respiratory infections. It could also improve the IQ of child. Despite of such enormous benefits, compliance to breastfeeding is abysmally low in not only developing countries but also developed countries. There are many misconceptions about breastfeeding that prevent mothers from complying with optimal breastfeeding practices. These misconceptions arise out of incomplete information or outdated traditional practices. To address these concerns, collaborative work was undertaken by MBPC, BPNI Maharashtra, Department of Community Medicine-Seth G.S. Medical College & KEM Hospital (Mumbai) and TATA Consultancy Services (TCS).These collaborative efforts have resulted in development of “ShishuPoshan”, mobile based application for the mothers. This application addresses almost all the queries that a lactating mother may have in a simple yet lucid and comprehensive way. In this case-study paper we will discuss about our learnings, experiences, journey in developing the ShishuPoshan application and various other aspects like the collaborative effort, the best practices followed, the lessons learnt, application beneficiaries, its impact and the way forward. We feel that these learnings would be useful for anybody wanting to develop application in healthcare domain for masses and achieve a scaled impact on needy people.