Sakhi

Stess is a common phenomenon in different stages of pregnancy. Research suggests that high stress and mood turbulence during pregnancy result in variety of negative maternal and infant outcomes includes low birth weight, reduced duration of gestation and preterm births. A variety of issues such as physical symptoms, parenting concerns, relationship strains, bodily changes, anxiety about labor and delivery, and concerns about the baby’s health etc. are experienced during pregnancy. Findings identified from literature research and initial user studies indicate that formal and informal social support helps women adjust to motherhood, assist women as they undergo hormonal changes and psychological stressors.

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Sakhi is a wearable device enabled peer support system to reduce stress experienced during pregnancy. The proposition of a wear peer support system triggered through the heart rate monitor creates an unobtrusive channel to enhance social communication between pregnant women, undergoing or undergone through same emotional and psychological changes. If the heart rate is identified above 95 bpm, it triggers a notification to her wearable device. The system persuades users to connect to peers from the established community based on her preferences. She can ask questions relating to different reasons why she might be stressed or can seek advice on any physiological state that she might be undergoing. The different pregnant women in this community extend help through the same channel. The system creates a pool of information in the form of categorized threads for the ladies to seek help just by browsing through what has been discussed before.

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Wearable technology is a novel intervention to facilitate inter-personal communication between the pregnant women to discuss issues while the system smartly detects when to facilitate the interaction.
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Touch and speech modality are used for input interactions, where information is presented in audio-visual format.

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This project was sponsored by Nokia Research Center, India.