In 2010, we introduced a system to enable any Bangladeshi pregnant mom to get appropriate advice through SMS if she registered herself in a mobile phone based pregnancy care advice service operated by MIS-DGHS.
The registration process was easy. In the SMS option of the mobile phone, she needed to type following codes and send to 16345: dghs reg lmp_date mobile_no. name
Example: dghs reg 04072012 01713018545 marjina
Explanation: lmp is the last menstrual period in format of ddmmyyyy. Mobile number is the cell number where she wants to receive the SMS advice. Name is her name.
On successful transmission of the registration SMS, she used to receive an instant SMS reply, which thanked her for registration, informed expected date of delivery and advised for following the SMS advices she would receive automatically from time to time. The advices were jointly developed by a group of subject experts from academic institutions, WHO, UNICEF and reproductive health program of the ministry.