Maternal Health Startup Uses AI Chatbot on WhatsApp to Reach Women in Rural Africa
Solayo Africa, a health-tech startup, is using an AI-powered chatbot called Moma to deliver pregnancy care and postpartum support through WhatsApp across sub-Saharan Africa. The platform provides symptom guidance, fetal development tracking, and connections to medical professionals when needed.
The founders-Oladiipo Damilola, Theresa Oyewole, and George Odiana-built Moma to address a critical access problem. In Nigeria, only 43 percent of births are attended by skilled health providers. The country accounts for 28.5 percent of global maternal deaths, with one in 19 Nigerian women facing lifetime risk of death during pregnancy or childbirth.
The platform works through WhatsApp, which has high penetration in rural areas where hospital access is limited. A pregnant woman types a question about symptoms or pregnancy milestones and receives tailored guidance within seconds. Moma tracks her pregnancy from week six onward and adjusts responses based on her trimester and medical history.
Women describe symptoms in plain language and receive instructions on whether to monitor at home or seek clinical care. After delivery, the platform transitions to postpartum recovery and infant care, including vaccination tracking through the child's first year.
The startup also integrated an e-commerce marketplace into WhatsApp. Users can purchase delivery packs and maternity products without leaving the messaging app, addressing a secondary barrier: sourcing supplies during pregnancy.
Solayo partners with hospitals and health maintenance organizations to escalate cases requiring professional judgment. Routine queries about nutrition, symptoms, and infant milestones stay within the AI system; complex cases move to human clinicians.
The intervention targets a specific problem. In rural Epe, Lagos State, maternal mortality reached 1,645 per 100,000 live births between 2015 and 2019. Nearly 80 percent of deaths occurred outside health facilities, and 72 percent involved unregistered pregnancies. Complications like eclampsia, hemorrhage, and sepsis-largely preventable when detected early-drive many of these deaths.
Moma handles thousands of daily queries, shortening the gap between symptom recognition and medical response. The startup plans expansion to other African markets where WhatsApp use is high and maternal healthcare infrastructure remains weak.
For healthcare professionals, the model illustrates how generative AI systems can route routine clinical questions away from overburdened providers, freeing capacity for cases requiring human judgment. The approach assumes smartphones and messaging access exist in target communities-a reasonable assumption in sub-Saharan Africa but not universal.
Your membership also unlocks:
