India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has upgraded its maternal and child health platform to improve digital health monitoring and continuity of care for women and children.
Called JANANI (Journey of Antenatal, Natal and Neonatal Integrated Care), the platform helps record and monitor health records of women during their reproductive age.
HOW IT WORKS
Developed as an upgraded version of the existing Reproductive and Child Health portal, it creates longitudinal digital health records, capturing key services delivered across antenatal care, delivery preparation, delivery, postnatal care, newborn care, home-based newborn and young child care, and family planning.
Based on a media release, it now features QR-based Mother and Child Health (MCH) cards, designed to make records portable and easier to access.
It now also incorporates automated alerts for high-risk pregnancies, due-list generation, and real-time dashboards, which the ministry said all support timely follow-up and supervisory review.
JANANI supports integration with national platforms such as U-WIN and POSHAN, facilitating data exchange and coordination across maternal health, immunisation, nutrition, and child health programmes.
The portal allows beneficiary registration through ABHA, Aadhaar and mobile number, with India-wide search functionality, reducing duplicate records and supporting continuity of care for migratory populations.
Moreover, it offers self-registration, alerts and reminders for antenatal care visits and immunisations, and access to digital MCH cards, information on nearby facilities, details on expected place of delivery, and health and nutrition guidance.
To date, JANANI has recorded 13.4 million beneficiary registrations, more than 3 million pregnant women registrations, over 3 million MCH cards generated, and more than 100,000 biometric verifications, according to the MOHFW.
THE LARGER CONTEXT
Its upgrade, the MOHFW explained in a media release, is part of broader efforts to improve digital monitoring, service coverage, and accountability in maternal and child healthcare.
In March, a government-backed programme was launched which aims to develop AI-powered tools targeting preterm births, a leading cause of neonatal death.
It established its foundational dataset – generated more than 1.6 million biospecimens and over a million ultrasound images from 12,000 pregnant participants – for training AI models that support personalised risk prediction. It is touted to be one of South Asia’s largest pregnancy datasets.
In late 2024, the Indian government formally introduced the U-WIN system. Modelled after the Co-WIN platform previously used to track COVID-19 vaccinations, this portal digitises the government’s vaccination services and makes vaccination records of pregnant women and children accessible across health facilities.