Mamay| Planet, With People

Awards & Nominations

Mamay has received the following awards and nominations. Way to go!

Global Nominee

Planet, With People

Your challenge is to build on the Human Planet Initiative of the Group on Earth Observations to apply new methods for mapping attributes of human populations. How can Human Planet data from NASA and other sources be used to improve or update maps or other information important to a problem that concerns you? Design or create a tool or service to accomplish this.

MAMAY: A COMMUNITY BREAST MILK SHARING APPLICATION USING GEOTAGGING AND CROWDSOURCING

Summary

Mamay is a community breast milk sharing application that will help women share their excess breast milk to those who are in need where it may bridge individuals from different interest and backgrounds in such a way it may promote a breastfeeding culture.

How We Addressed This Challenge

Our Challenge

Mamay is addressing the challenge Planet, With People which it discuss on how to apply new methods for mapping people – our settlements, infrastructure, population, and activities – in ways that can help everyone understand and meet human needs related to disasters, climate change, public health, food, water, energy resources, and other aspects of sustainable development.

Abstract

Breastfeeding¸ still a gender equality issue, is a reproductive right. Reliable information about the health and reproductive benefits of breastfeeding should be available to all women. Breastfeeding offers many benefits for both baby and mother, but there might not be enough awareness or support given to lactating mothers. Findings of the researches conducted from around the world, in the developing and developed countries alike, show that optimal breastfeeding dramatically reduces the risk of infants and young children dying. This project was specifically designed to present the possible solution that would aid the parents or guardians to have access to breast milk for their children through the use of a mobile application called Mamay.Mamay intends to help women who are struggling with post-partum depression by creating consulting services and support groups which may help them cope with the depression. As a social enterprise, Project Mamay is hoped to building protocol that may eventually become an industry standard which needs the support of large stakeholders to accommodate the members of breastfeeding community

Background of the Problem

Breastfeeding gives children the healthiest start in life and is one of the simplest, smartest, and most cost-effective ways we have of ensuring that all children survive and thrive. Yet, less than half of the world’s newborns benefit from early breastfeeding and even fewer are exclusively breastfed for the first six months [1]. Even though breastfeeding could save lives, when a mother has experienced a traumatic birth, she may have difficulty in breastfeeding because of problems with milk production, physical discomfort (i.e. holding, sitting, finding the right position), alienation, or emotional detachment [2]. On the contrary, some women produce too much milk in a day in which they would store it in a container for later use. Some countries like Switzerland [3], the United States of America [4], Brazil [4], and the Philippines [5] practices human milk banking. Recent studies have shown that milk sharing donors and recipients use both online (i.e. Facebook) and offline (i.e. local community) social networks to facilitate these practices [6].  The informal sharing of breast milk is not supported by experts within the US Food and Drug Administration because of potential health risks to infants [7].

How We Developed This Project

Our Solution

The basic structure of systems analysis and design, considered the application’s inputs, processes, and outputs. The mobile application processes the collected data and when the user searches for a breast milk donor the application will generate the nearest donor to its nearest location. Specific algorithms and processes are applied to the data to get the desired output of the end-users. Once the data is processed, the results are sent to the mobile application of both the end-users.

Since it is a mobile application it will be coded through the use of JAVA programming language, Google Maps API for the visualization of the location, the breast milk information will be stored in a blockchain network of the Amazon Web Services.

How We Used Space Agency Data in This Project

Based on the CSA data on Infant Deaths, Cause by Gender and Age the infant death rate is still so alarming. Which state on the diagram in the year 2014, there is a 5.1 infant death rate per 1000 total births. If parents/guardians have the access to education about breastfeeding and breast milk donors who are willing to donate their milk we could somehow avert this from happening. Various researches have shown that breastfeeding could save lives. Breast milk has this anti-bodies that could prevent babies against sudden infant death syndrome. By utilizing these data we could create mapping where it could locate community which have the lowest breastfeeding rate, and put up our hub where mothers can store/donate their milk. It mainly used for operation planning purposes, because a high infant death rate corelates with Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). In addition, supplement that with the tool that could connect them to the people who are willing to donate their milk and having a support group that would help them throughout their breastfeeding journey.

Our project is using a GPS functionality so we relied on using the NASA's satellite NAVSTAR for the accuracy of the location of our users and the establishments where they can lactate their babies. The breastfeeding area may also be crowdsourced.

Project Demo
Data & Resources
  1.  (“Breastfeeding”, 2015). In UNICEF. Retrieved from https://www.unicef.org/nutrition/index_24824.html, accessed October 2020.
  2. Klein, M., Vanderbilt, D., & Kendall-Tackett, K. (2014). PTSD and Breastfeeding. ICAN: Infant, Child, & Adolescent Nutrition, 6(4), 211–215. doi:10.1177/1941406414541665.
  3. Barin J., Lötscher KQ. (2018). The Milk Gap: Contextualizing Human Milk Banking and Milk Sharing Practices and Perceptions in Switzerland
  4. Perrin MT., Goodell S., Allen J., Folgeman A. (2015). A Mixed-Methods Observational Study of Human Milk Sharing Communities on Facebook. BREASTFEEDING MEDICINE Volume 9, Number 3, 2014 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. DOI: 10.1089/bfm.2013.0114
  5. ("The Philippine Human Milk Banking (Manual Of Operation)", n,d).The Philippine Human Milk Banking Guidelines. Retrieved from: https://www.humanitarianresponse.info/sites/www.humanitarianresponse.info/files/documents/files/FINAL%20DRAFT_PNCHMB%20GUIDELINES_June%2029%20Meeting%20Edited%202%20%281%29.pdf accessed October 2020.
  6. Palmquist, A. E. L., &Doehler, K. (2015). Human milk sharing practices in the U.S. Maternal & Child Nutrition, 12(2), 278–290. doi:10.1111/mcn.12221
  7. Keim, S. A., McNamara, K. A., Jayadeva, C. M., Braun, A. C., Dillon, C. E., & Geraghty, S. R. (2013). Breast Milk Sharing via the Internet: The Practice and Health and Safety Considerations. Maternal and Child Health Journal, 18(6), 1471–1479. doi:10.1007/s10995-013-1387-6
  8. ("NASA's Utilization of Global Positioning System (GPS)", 2012) In NASA.GOV Retrieved from https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/heo/scan/communications/policy/GPS_Utilization.html, accessed October 2020.
  9. Vital Statistics Retrieved from https://open.alberta.ca/interact/vital-statistics, accessed October 2020.
Tags
#breastfeeding #projectMamay #mobile application #breastmilk #blockchain
Judging
This project was submitted for consideration during the Space Apps Judging process.