Amadrina a Primeriza: The Women's Collaborative App

What is Amadrina to a Primeriza?

Amadrina a Primeriza is the project that promotes the union between two groups of women: mothers with breastfeeding experience (Madrinas) and new mothers who want to breastfeed their newborns. Each first-timer can choose a lactation godmother with whom he establishes a relationship to consult doubts and follow up individually through an App during the first 7 months.

What results have been obtained in the first part of the project?

In the first part of the project, these unions between godmothers and gilts were made through a website and the results were very positive. There were significant differences between the group that agreed to have contact with a sponsor through the website in terms of breastfeeding rates, that is, the first mothers who contacted a godmother through the website had better breastfeeding rates than gilts who didn't.

Why a collaborative network to encourage breastfeeding?

The benefits of breastfeeding are undeniable in the health of babies and mothers, especially in our Autonomous Community where the rates of childhood obesity and diabetes are above the national average.

The difficulties in breastfeeding do not always arise during consultation hours and sometimes professionals can not solve them due to tight work schedules; the disparity of opinions of the professionals, the scarce support of relatives or relatives and the loss of the culture of breastfeeding urge women to abandon breastfeeding due to small obstacles. The truth is that the implementation of breastfeeding is fraught with difficulties, and this is reflected in the low rates of success in breastfeeding rates. In Spain, these rates are well below the recommendations of the World Health Organization (WHO).

What did it mean to win the Initiative Award for the Humanization of Birth and Lactation Assistance (IHAN)?

This recognition has meant that this project continues forward because this project started as a doctoral thesis. As I said, we had very good results. However, if we had not had the Initiative for the Humanization of Assistance to Birth and Lactation (IHAN) prize, we would not have moved forward, it would not have evolved now to have a mobile application.

How is the mobile application they have developed?

The design of this App is characterized by generating a field of easy and intuitive management, where the godmothers and gilts can exchange experiences and can be provided with reliable guides and supported by scientific evidence. The nursing mom is a volunteer mother who accompanies and guides a new mother during breastfeeding, making the recent mother have direct support one to one.

In general, the conversations between the godmothers and new mothers are fluid and oriented to give self-confidence and security to the new mothers. The relationships that are established in decisive moments in the life of a woman who has just been a mother with some one who listens to her and empathizes with her, generate bonds and feelings of gratitude that last, as well as the need to help future mothers to have a breastfeeding and more bearable upbringing, thus managing to calm the anxiety, getting them to live with sweetness, attachment and tranquility the act of love and dedication that is breastfeeding.

The application allows a chat between godmothers and gilts and there is also a blog where godmothers and gilts can send us their testimonies or their texts that they want to share with the users of the application. It is true that the application is largely improvable. In fact, we have not made publicity on social networks because we do not have the means to deal with so much demand because we know that it will have it.

After the creation of the App, how was the evolution of the project?

It should be mentioned that at the beginning it was a research project that was intended for only 50 first-time. When the application was announced and the utilities of the application were described, the project was destined for 80 downloads and we had 1400 downloads in just five hours. This tells us that there is a real demand for this type of media that can also benefit the next generations of our population with low cost. It is something that is altruistically, a network of mothers for the health of the next generations.

At what stage is the project right now?

We had to stop because the support was not adequate to have a large download volume. Now in the phase in which we are the godmothers have an accredited training on breastfeeding and we have more than 100 godmothers. We have lactation monitors but we also have midwives, gynecologists, pediatricians, nurses, etc. Not only of our autonomous community but of the entire national territory and to our surprise this project has crossed the pond because we have Mexican, Chilean and other godmothers in Edinburgh. That means that this project carried with an economic support behind could give great benefits to the health of mothers and babies.

What is the future of Amadrina to a Primeriza?

The future is uncertain. Right now the objective is to deliver the results to the IHAN, which is our commitment. The BFHI respects the code of breast milk substitutes, so we do not have any pharmaceutical house to finance the project. Part of it has been financed with the IHAN award and part of it I have put out of my pocket. The future of Amadrina It is uncertain because it is not sustainable since the project does not have any type of financing.