一人で悩む妊婦さんへ。健康・ストレスを管理するアプリを届ける

Supporting Pregnant Women with an App for Mental and Physical Health

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Project Details

 

Hello, everyone. Thanks for visiting this page.  
My name is Anna Kreshchenko and I am from Ukraine. Currently, I am a student at Kyoto University, Japan.
 
Right now I am working on the problem of depression during pregnancy.
Are you aware of the fact that depression and anxiety disorders are common mental health problems with about 10-15 out of every 100 pregnant women suffer from this condition?

Last year I witnessed my cousin suffer from depression during pregnancy and that has left an enormous impact on me. Since then I have been working on developing an application that supports pregnant women, aiming for a "society where every woman can have a safe pregnancy".

Together with Kentaro Yoshikawa, and other team members with different nationalities and specializations including Japan, India, Brazil, and China, we have been working together to implement this project. Moreover, we have a big team of midwives and nutritionists, who cooperate with us in creating a product that will meet the demands of pregnant women.

This project has received numerous awards including 3rd place in International entrepreneurship contest, our team was selected as a finalist for Japanese Business Model Contest and as a cohort member of Phoenixi Incubator.
 
With the support of the Kyoto University Medical department, various companies and governmental agencies, we were able to test the prototype of our product in three different languages: Japanese, English, and Portuguese. 

Currently, we have decided to partner with one of the biggest maternity website in Brazil and are preparing for establishing a company.
 
However, this project, which we are developing with our team of university students, is lacking the development cost for large scale implementation. We plan to further expand the functionalities of our prototype with this crowdfunding. That’s why we have decided to officially launch the crowdfunding campaign and receive the development funds. 

We are looking for your support. Thank you.

 

 

 

How the idea of Umenoki was born

 

My cousin was diagnosed with depression while she was in the second month of pregnancy. While suffering from depression she was always anxious about the health of her baby, but she did not know what to do and what not to do. The internet was overflowing with information and suggestions, however she could never be sure whether the information was correct or not. Moreover, the suggestion greatly changes with lifestyle, the period of pregnancy, and the physique of each woman, so she was never sure whether she could trust the information which she had. Her partner was busy with work unaware as she slowly fell into the grip of depression.

 

 

Fortunately, my cousin was able to deliver the baby safely, but it is estimated that each year there are more than 100,000 women in Japan and 20 million women worldwide who develop depression during pregnancy for the same reason.

 

Pregnant women are often overwhelmed with the responsibility of eating well, staying healthy and emotionally positive. But at the same time, are constantly bombarded with some really general information that does respond to their specific needs. Moreover, when everyone expects women to be happy during this time, it is especially challenging for them to share their worries and anxieties with others, be it their partners, family, friends or coworkers.
 
I believe that every pregnant woman should be cared for and supported. This belief inspired me to start the Umenoki project and to develop the U+Me Pregnancy App together with my friends from Kyoto University.

 

 

 

Functionalities of U+Me

 

Umenoki app analyzes uses a health-tracking algorithm, based on the novel ML\AI approach, that can monitor women’s biological data, providing personalized insights related to a woman’s intake of nutritional elements, emotional stability, exercises, stress and sleep levels..

 

Until now, all the existing pregnancy applications showed only general information regardless of the specific personal needs. Moreover, there was no specialized health management app for pregnant women. Our goal is to develop the application that combines the functionalities of tracking health and to provide specialized information/advice for each pregnant woman individually.
 

Main Functions

 

●Health Tracking

The application can analyze the mother's physical health condition as well as mental condition, such as stress level, from health information that you can collect with your smartphone, such as heart rate, exercise amount, and weight. The application will give you the best advice according to the number of weeks and condition at that time. 

(* This application is not a medical device. The main purpose is to support the  daily life of pregnant women and to provide recommendations for healthy diet . The application does not diagnose any diseases.)

 

 

●Recipe Recommendations

We’ve developed a recipe search platform exclusively for pregnant women. Recommendations can be adjusted based on symptoms such as morning sickness, swelling, and anemia, or nutrients which are needed during pregnancy such as iron and folic acid. Women can also receive recipe recommendations based on their weight and calorie intake.

 

 

●Notifications

We are trying to create an environment, where a partner can be actively involved during the whole period of pregnancy. With our application women can share their physical health and mental health condition, as well as the baby's current state with their partner. By analyzing women’s biological data, the app gives suggestions to partners about how to provide adequate care and support.

 

 

●Interaction

“U+Me Pregnancy App” - app that supports and guides pregnant women in the daily life of a woman through interaction with a little animated baby character in the app. It turns the difficulty of following pregnancy health guidelines into a beautiful and simple gamified experience, thus taking care both of physical and mental aspects of health for expecting mothers. 

 

 

 

 

A society where every woman can have a safe pregnancy

 

Every day, more than 800 pregnant women die worldwide due to preventable causes. (https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/maternal-mortality)

 

“My home is far from medical institutions.”

“I do not have any money.”

 

Pregnant women have a lot of difficulties, but many of them have a smartphone in their hands.

We believe that using their smartphones to check their health can provide mothers with access to medical care and improve their own health and the health of their children.

We would like to make a significant contribution to the maternal mortality rate reduction in Japan and worldwide, and work with the Mother-Child Handbooks that are currently being adopted in many countries.