Maternal health and artificial intelligence experts say locally tailored AI solutions could improve antenatal attendance through automated appointment reminders, tracking missed visits, and providing pregnant women with timely, pregnancy-related health information in local languages.
They said the tools could also help healthcare workers identify pregnant women who miss antenatal appointments and require follow-up, thereby strengthening continuity of care and improving maternal health outcomes.
However, the experts cautioned that artificial intelligence should complement, not replace, physical antenatal consultations and the clinical judgement of trained health professionals. They stressed that technology alone cannot adequately assess a pregnant woman’s health or monitor foetal growth and development,
The experts also called for the development of locally tailored AI solutions that reflect Nigeria’s realities, noting that poor internet connectivity, unreliable electricity, limited access to smartphones and low literacy levels, particularly in rural communities, could prevent many women from benefiting from the technology.
PUNCH Healthwise earlier reported that the Gates Foundation and MTN Foundation were investing in AI-powered tools to improve pregnant women’s access to timely, reliable health information and care, to improve maternal health outcomes.
The initiative also seeks to strengthen communication, expand access to essential health information, improve hospital referral systems and promote coordinated emergency care among healthcare workers.
PUNCH Healthwise also reported that health technology company Solayo Africa had developed an AI-powered chatbot that uses WhatsApp to provide personalised maternal healthcare support from pregnancy through the postpartum period and a child’s first year.
Providing expert insight into the use of AI to improve maternal health, a Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist at University College Hospital, Ibadan, Prof. Chris Aimakhu, said AI could provide information and support the management of straightforward, low-risk pregnancies but should not be relied on when complications arise.
Aimakhu, the Second Vice-President of the Society of Gynaecology and Obstetrics of Nigeria, explained that pregnancy care must be tailored to each woman’s risk level, with high-risk pregnancies requiring closer medical supervision and specialised care.
He noted that AI tools could help women track and keep antenatal appointments, take their medications as prescribed, and access information about pregnancy and childbirth, adding that it could provide educational materials through illustrations and other formats that make health information easier to understand.
However, he warned that such tools could not carry out essential physical assessments, including checking a woman’s blood levels, monitoring her weight and blood pressure or assessing the baby’s heartbeat and growth.
The professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at the University of Ibadan cautioned against relying on AI-generated responses to interpret symptoms or test results, noting that some tools could provide misleading information because their responses were based on information gathered from different sources rather than a physical examination.
For example, the gynaecologist said a pregnant woman experiencing symptoms such as fever or headache could receive an automated suggestion that she has malaria even when another condition was responsible.
“AI is not going to examine your chest. It’s not going to do that. So it’s good for straightforward normal pregnancies. When pregnancies are having issues, then you should see somebody who is trained to manage those things,” he said.
Aimakhu added that AI could also support healthcare workers by helping them retrieve medical information, check medication dosages, and explain health topics in pictures and simpler terms to patients.
He said healthcare professionals could use AI-generated graphics and educational materials to explain subjects such as newborn care and warning signs during pregnancy, allowing women to access information on their phones or other screens during clinic visits.
He also said digital tools could help healthcare workers communicate with patients and keep track of appointments, especially in facilities with large numbers of women attending antenatal clinics.
However, he maintained that AI could not replace the direct interaction between a patient and a health professional.
Also, a technology expert and AI engineer, Michael Akinwumi, said digital systems supported by AI could help address missed antenatal appointments by automatically reminding pregnant women about scheduled visits.
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Akinwumi, Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer at TOG Africa, drawing from his experience visiting primary healthcare centres in urban and rural parts of Abuja, said some women registered for antenatal care but failed to return regularly until they were close to delivery or needed to collect delivery kits.
He said the problem was not always unwillingness to attend appointments, as some women forgot their dates or became occupied with work, business and caring for their other children.
Akinwumi proposed systems that would capture a woman’s details at registration, track her subsequent appointments and send reminders ahead of scheduled visits.
He said reminders could be delivered through WhatsApp messages, SMS or automated voice calls, depending on the woman’s access to technology.
He also noted that AI tools could make health messages available in local languages and make them understandable to women who might not be comfortable communicating in English.
“AI can actually encourage antenatal attendance. We can have a system whereby they can get personal messages, reminders and notifications on a daily, weekly, bi-weekly or monthly basis. The tools can also be developed in a way that those who can install applications on their phones could do that and they get the information.
“There is an international pregnancy app and baby tracker that does something like this, and one thing I also love about it is the fact that it’s not limited to pregnancy alone. It also helps you track your child’s milestones. Tools like this can also remind you of immunisation schedules and even help healthcare workers keep track of those who miss their appointments,” the AI engineer said.
The technology expert said such systems could also help healthcare workers identify women who missed appointments and prioritise follow-up, especially those considered to be at higher risk.
He explained that a simple digital dashboard could show the number of women expected at a clinic, those who attended and those who missed their appointments, enabling health workers to identify patients who needed to be contacted.
He said information from previous visits, including patients’ vital signs, could also help flag women who might require urgent attention.
Akinwumi added that digital records could reduce the administrative burden on healthcare workers, many of whom were already overworked and might not have the time to contact every woman who missed an appointment.
He said AI-supported health assistants could also help women understand basic symptoms and determine when they needed to seek professional medical attention, potentially reducing unnecessary hospital visits while directing those with concerning symptoms to healthcare facilities.
The SEO expert advocated the development of pregnancy and childcare applications that could support women beyond delivery by tracking children’s developmental milestones and reminding parents about immunisation appointments.
Akinwumi, however, warned that adopting AI solutions developed for countries with more advanced infrastructure without adapting them to Nigeria’s conditions could exclude the very communities that needed them the most.
He identified limited access to smartphones, the cost of internet data, poor network coverage and the dominance of English in many digital applications as barriers to the use of AI in rural communities.
He therefore urged developers to create solutions that could function offline and use SMS and voice calls to reach people without smartphones or reliable internet access.
“Some of these solutions, you have to be connected to the Internet to get the best of it. But for people in locations without internet access or power supply, they are missing out already,” he said.
He added that AI tools should be designed to communicate in local languages so that women who did not understand English could benefit from the information and reminders they provided.
The technology expert also called for increased digitisation of primary healthcare centres, many of which, he said, still relied heavily on paper records.
