How the UN’s ‘Sex Agency’ Uses Tech to Save Mothers’ Lives

Towards the top of 2020, on a piece journey to Chocó, Colombia, Jaime Aguirre got here throughout a lady—maybe 11 or 12 years outdated—holding a new child. 

“Is that this your child?” Aguirre requested. Sure, she mentioned. He was shocked. “Can I ask you—sorry—why did you get pregnant so younger?”

“My boyfriend on the time advised me that the primary time that you’ve got intercourse, you don’t get pregnant,” he says she replied. 

Aguirre is the innovation coordinator for the United Nations Inhabitants Fund (UNFPA) in Colombia, a human rights company centered on reproductive well being. It’s the UN’s “intercourse company,” and Aguirre describes his job as bolstering well being in his nation by supporting new applied sciences. Making them accessible to younger individuals is very necessary, as a result of being pregnant is the primary killer of women aged 15 to 19 worldwide, in accordance with knowledge from Save The Kids and UNFPA.

Chocó is a poor space with a big Afro-Colombian inhabitants and comparatively excessive charges of adolescent being pregnant. Individuals there rely extra on conventional midwifery than the hospital system, so on the time he met the younger mom, Aguirre was there to assist Partera Important, or Important Midwife. The mission is rolling out a cellular app to assist midwives register newborns and determine threat elements and problems that warrant pressing referrals to the closest hospital. It’s meant to mix the most effective of each worlds—preserving the knowledge and custom of midwifery with the info and sources of institutional well being. “Innovation tradition is essential for us,” says Aguirre.

“We really feel we’re one of many UN’s greatest saved secrets and techniques,” says Eddie Wright, a consultant for UNFPA. “We wish each being pregnant to be needed, each start to be secure, and each younger individual to succeed in their potential.” This implies serving to to offer individuals in 150 nations, together with areas which can be at conflict, with household planning, contraception, and maternal well being checkups. World wide, the company has innovated with Massive Information, drones, and even a robotic in an effort to safeguard well being and rights. Right here’s a take a look at a few of the tasks they’re main.

Colombia

When Aguirre returned from Chocó, he was nonetheless pondering of the city’s excessive charges of adolescent being pregnant and maternal mortality. Myths about reproductive well being should be enjoying a task, he thought, and reversing them ought to assist. So he got down to determine those in circulation on social media.

“So I received my R,” Aguirre says, referring to the programming language, and wrote a code for scraping tweets in Spanish from anyplace on this planet. “I discovered two myths in a short time,” he recollects. “And I used to be very involved.” One discouraged individuals from getting IUDs by claiming that newborns might come out holding the gadgets of their hand; one other really useful boiling condoms and consuming the water to keep away from being pregnant. His workforce, which named the mission Taboo, scaled up, capturing 12,000 tweets from Latin America and Spain that portrayed myths about contraception. They labeled them into 22 prevalent themes that ranged from telling those who they will’t get STIs via oral intercourse to encouraging them to make use of Coca-Cola as a contraceptive.

The workforce’s knowledge, methodology, and summaries at the moment are accessible on an internet site meant for younger ladies, educators, and policymakers, together with infographics debunking every fantasy. They’ve shared their findings with each Colombia’s Ministry of Well being and district officers in Bogotá who design intercourse ed packages. “Behavioral change isn’t a factor you’ll be able to measure in a brief time period,” says Aguirre, however he’s optimistic in regards to the potential of his mission. 

The Philippines

A UNFPA workforce from the Philippines instituted an identical mission throughout Covid lockdowns. The nation has one of many highest adolescent being pregnant charges in Asia—in 2017, 9 p.c of 15-to-19-year-olds had youngsters. (The Philippines’ Fee on Inhabitants and Improvement, referred to as PopCom, known as it a nationwide emergency.) Almost 1 / 4 of married ladies and half of single ladies within the nation have unmet wants for household planning. 

“We observed that there’s restricted and outdated knowledge on household planning,” says Leila Joudane, the UNFPA’s consultant within the Philippines. As in Colombia, a workforce started scraping on-line feedback for extra present information to complement authorities demographic surveys. They used Twitter and RH-Care.information, an academic web site for the Filipino public about reproductive well being, and discovered that folks have been complaining about poor entry to contraceptives. “It was a really strict lockdown,” Joudane recollects. “Many individuals on-line had numerous challenges.” They shared this knowledge with PopCom, which responded by distributing contraceptives door-to-door.