Dewas district in Madhya Pradesh has started using artificial intelligence to keep in touch with expectant mothers between health-worker visits. Under a new project called HelloMaaAI, registered pregnant women receive automated AI voice calls that ask how they are doing, and any answer that points to danger is passed straight to the frontline health team.

District Collector Rituraj Singh launched the initiative on Tuesday as part of efforts to bring down maternal and infant mortality and make sure women get complete antenatal care. The project is run with CSR support, and the application behind it was built by a private technology company, according to a report in Naidunia.

No smartphone, no app, no internet

The design choice that stands out is its reach. Women do not need a smartphone, a mobile data connection or an app. The calls work on ordinary keypad phones, and the conversation takes place in Hindi, with English also supported on the project’s website. That matters in districts where many households share a basic handset and app-based health tools rarely reach the women who need them most.

Questions matched to each trimester

Women registered with the health department get calls timed to their stage of pregnancy. The AI assistant asks about their health, nutrition, essential check-ups and tests, precautions, vaccination and preparation for delivery. It can also answer their questions in simple language. Every response is recorded and analysed by the system.

Alerts to ASHAs and ANMs

When a woman’s answers reveal serious symptoms or a high-risk condition, such as bleeding, a severe headache or swelling, the system alerts the area’s ANM, ASHA worker and field health staff, who can then contact her and arrange medical help and follow-up. The phone conversation is meant to lead to care, not just deliver information. The project’s own materials describe the calls as guidance rather than a diagnosis, with information shared only with the woman’s health worker.

A real-time dashboard for health officials

Authorised health officials get a live dashboard showing call status, women’s responses and pending follow-up cases, so they can see who has been reached and where action is still needed. Because routine reminders are automated, field workers spend less time repeating general advice and more time on the women who need extra care. Officials describe it as one of the first efforts of its kind in the country to identify risk among pregnant women this way.

Why it matters

Missed antenatal visits and warning signs that are noticed too late remain major drivers of avoidable maternal and newborn complications. Conditions such as anaemia, high blood pressure and gestational diabetes are often caught late. A low-cost voice channel that works on any phone, combined with a clear escalation path to ASHAs, offers a practical way to extend the reach of an overstretched frontline workforce. If it shows results in Dewas, the model could be copied by other districts looking to put AI to work in public health without asking mothers to adopt new technology.

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