Nairobi, Kenya (Minority Africa) — In 2019, 31-year-old Kenyan Ann Mogaka returned to work six months after having her daughter. Given its benefits, Mogaka wanted to continue breastfeeding her child. Pumping presented a solution. However, as a first-time mother, Mogaka did not have a pumping schedule. “I didn’t know I had to have [had] a pumping schedule while I was on maternity leave, so [when it was time to resume work], I didn’t have a lot of milk,” she says. “After going back to work, I would pump one side as the baby would be breastfeeding on the other in the evening. It was difficult.” Luckily, two years later, when Mogaka gave birth to her second child she came across a Facebook post about Nyonyesha – a mobile application designed to educate women about breastfeeding – and decided to try it. The app sends notifications every two hours to remind mothers to pump. According to Mogaka, the app made pumping easier for her as she was able to pump at regular intervals, resulting in a consistent supply of breastmilk. “When I was on three months maternity leave, the alerts would remind me to pump regularly, so I had a lot of milk stored in the fridge for the baby to use by the time I went back to work,” she says. Nyonyesha is an innovation by award-winning Kenyan journalist Janet Otieno, whose breastfeeding story resonates with that of Mogaka and many other women, especially first-time mothers. Although Otieno had been shown what to do at the antenatal clinic, breastfeeding a real baby was not as simple as the demonstrations indicated. “I couldn’t breastfeed, so the baby [who was preterm and birthed at seven months] kept crying. I felt helpless and emotionally drained,” shesays. Otieno did not want to use formula because the clinic had stressed the importance of breastmilk, especially since it helps with the baby’s brain development. So, she tried and failed again. Eventually, she called a friend who was a pediatrician for help. The doctor came and diagnosed the problem: incorrect breastfeeding position. Once the problem had been identified, she started breastfeeding effortlessly. However, the experience left a deep impression on her. Several years later, in October 2020, this experience inspired her to create Nyonyesha, a Swahili term for breastfeeding. Primarily for Kenyan women, the content of the app is in English, Swahili and sign language and has over a hundred downloads. With enough funding, she hopes to expand it to women across the African continent. Otieno is not looking to make money from it; she explains that the app is free because she wants many women to have access to it. The World Health Organization (WHO) stipulates that a mother should breastfeed a child exclusively on breast milk for the first six months. It also explains that if breastfeeding is scaled up to near-universal levels, about 820,000 children’s lives would be saved. Working mothers who want to breastfeed exclusively have to pump regularly. Josephine Munene, the co-founder and honorary secretary of the Kenya Association of Breastfeeding (KAB), explains the importance of doing this. “The way lactation works is you need to remove milk to make milk. I tell working mothers to start pumping four weeks before going back to work, so they have milk put away.” Along with the pumping schedule, Mogaka also enjoyed other features on Nyonyesha, such as articles and videos about breastfeeding. “I found the articles on how to store milk after breastfeeding quite helpful. I even recommended the app to one of my friends who was having problems breastfeeding.” Michelle Gachuhi, a 29-year-old tech-savvy Kenyan mum, who recently interacted with the app, also found the articles interesting. “As a first-time mother, the articles grabbed my attention, like the one about how husbands can support breastfeeding mothers,” she says. Nyonyesha is the first Kenyan app targeting breastfeeding mothers, but digital platforms with the same idea have been around much longer. In 2015, Thitu Kariba Garang, a stay-at-home mum and counseling psychologist, created The Pregnant and Nursing Mums Support group on Facebook. “When I was expecting, I would share the experience with my Facebook friends. Then as my posts became popular, some of my friends who were also pregnant suggested we create a Facebook group to support one other,” she tells Minority Africa. The group has about 400,000 members and has been running for eight years. Over the years, the group’s activities have expanded from providing emotional support to one another to contributing money to help poor mothers around the country. Facebook groups like Garang’s help encourage women to breastfeed exclusively despite the challenges.