Teheca, a Ugandan health startup, has launched Prepared Mama Kit which is an improvement of the widely used Mama Kit. The improvement is aimed at making it more appealing to new and young mothers.
Maama is a Bantu word to mean Mother and Mama Kit is a widely used in Uganda by pregnant mothers in upcountry districts during antenatal visits and labor.
The team at Teheca, however, decided to make it more appealing to the urban and millennial mothers by replacing the polythene bag packaging with an African material made backpack bag as well as including more products.
"After research from a number of mothers including two of whom that are our teammates we realized that the current mama kit - though comprehensive in terms of items - the quantity was insufficient, hence mothers still needed to purchase more items after delivery," Daniel Ruyonga, from Teheca, pointed out.
Looking at this they decided, to make it bigger, easier to carry and stylish for the current Millennials.
[caption id="attachment_2594" align="aligncenter" width="1280"] Contents of the Prepared Mama Kit[/caption]
"It has enough quantities of maternal pharmaceuticals and also provides mothers with a bag that they can use after delivery especially during the postnatal visits and hence we evolution of the prepared mama," Daniel Ruyonga from Teheca.
The new Prepared Mama kit, contains cotton wool, surgical gloves, surgical blade, cord clump, immunization card, soap and umbigel for the cord cleaning, gauzea and polythene sheet.
The bag comes with a full traditional mama kit, which is currently on the market, and more items needed by mothers as well as the baby after birth.
"The bag is designed by Teheca and locally made - which is in line with the attempts to create work opportunities for youths," Daniel added.
[caption id="attachment_2595" align="aligncenter" width="1280"] Most of the bag contents are branded Teheca[/caption]
Mama Kit was innovated in 1996 by Dr. Florence Oryem-Ebanyat, the second female doctor from Acholi Sub-Region. It's production started in 1997 and has become a standard kit for all mothers in Uganda.
The kit's use has extended to DRC and South Sudan, although Dr. Oryem-Ebanyat has no patent or copyright for the kit.
The new Prepared Mama goes for UGx. 60,000 and orders can be made online through the Teheca website here.