Baby Talk

Pregnancy is confusing enough even before the baby arrives. A new, digitalized platform promises to answer the tough questions.

By Maggie Tiojakin

Located in the upmarket neighborhood of Permata Hijau, South Jakarta, the headquarters of Mommeworld has the feel of a beauty clinic that is a shade too bright and wonderfully pristine. This isn’t a bad thing though, because it attracts the right target market of women. Or, more specifically: women and their children.

Dr. Adhiatma Gunawan, director and founder of www.mommeworld.com, is a 29-year-old physician who wanted to be an obstetrician. Fascinated by the profound process of parenthood, he decided to create a digitalized platform for parents to consult real doctors on matters of women’s and children’s health.

“This is a dream come true, really,” says Dr. Adhiatma. “To be honest, I hadn’t expected it to take off the way it did – but there are a lot of women out there who are looking for pregnancy advice, and who had had a difficult time finding a reliable source until they discovered the website.”

The platform itself is highly interactive, connected to social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, through which the staff at Mommeworld (including Dr. Adhiatma) will answer every question and concern asked and posted online.

“We’re working on creating a live consulting session,” he says. “But even now the wait is not that bad – at most you’ll have to wait an hour to get a reply from us.”

On Facebook, it has 1,300 fans, which is quite a feat for a website that has only been running for a few months. And every hour a health tip is posted by Mommeworld through its Twitter account. However, the site itself still attracts the most traffic, with its specified section(s) on how to chart the due date and an ovulation calendar.

Even so, Dr. Adhiatma asserts that because he is not an obstetrician, there are still questions that he cannot answer, those which he must pass on to friends in the field. For example, a recent question posted on Mommeworld’s Facebook account dealt with the nature of certain prescribed drugs and their effects. Unable to provide an accurate answer, he contacted an obstetrician friend. This is a good thing, he says.

“All doctors do it. It’s impossible for us to know everything, so we have to keep learning, and never be too embarrassed to ask others.”


Doctor on Call

According to Dr. Cynthia, a general physician who runs her own practice in Sunter, having a medical information platform that is readily accessible to people is an astounding breakthrough. But it will never replace the face-to-face consultations that doctors have with their patients.

“It is a great addition for parents,” said Dr. Cynthia, when visited at her home clinic. “However, being a parent myself, it can never quite replace the interaction you have with your family doctor. Believe me, when you worry about your child’s health, you need more than a message, you need to see the doctor’s face.”

Questions and comments vary in both nature and length – though almost 99 percent of them are asked by new mothers, or mothers-to-be. Dr. Adhiatma takes it as a positive sign, because here is a wonderful opportunity for him and his team to help break the myths and molds that have, for many years, plagued expecting women. Is coffee bad for the fetus? Can pregnant women have sex? Is it true that if you hate someone while you’re pregnant the baby will be born looking exactly like that person? Should babies be allowed to cry for more than five minutes?

“Pregnancy is a wonderful thing,” Dr. Adhiatma says. “But it is also a terrifying process for a lot of women. That’s what makes our program such a success – because it strives to dispel the myths and old wives’ tales about pregnancy that have been going around for hundreds of years.”

He then shows a comment on Facebook where a woman asked him if it were true that drinking coffee during pregnancy might result in the child being born with a darker skin tone. Dr. Adhiatma smiles at this.

“Even when you know it makes no sense, traditions do go a long way,” he says.

Dr. Cynthia agrees.

“People will believe anything when it comes to pregnancy,” she says. “And it’s important to separate myth from fact, because, in some cultures, pregnant women are made to eat or drink certain concoctions that may lead to the fetus’s disability, or even death.”

Asked about the history of Mommeworld, Dr. Adhiatma says it is a newly transformed version of an older site called IwannaBeMom which, essentially, was the prototype of Mommeworld. The name of the site refers to “Mom and Me” – though pronounced “Mommy”.

“It is a lot more interactive, hip, and thorough. The former was a blog-type site, while the latter is more of a business site – in that it follows a certain business model,” he says


Sound Advice

The last couple of months have been very demanding, mainly because Mommeworld, in its partnership with several product brands, has been running an extensive campaign that will help mothers and toddlers forge an even tighter bond. Recently launched in Indonesia, Dr. Adhiatma is currently the only official and certified educator of Dunstan Baby Language.

Dunstan Baby Language was patented by Priscilla Dunstan, a native Australian who discovered an unusual connection in the way that babies make noise. A violinist with an eidetic memory, Priscilla found a link in the sounds that babies make and transcribed them into a five-syllable language – heh, neh, eairh, owh and eh – with each syllable accounting for a human reaction for food, rest and comfort.

Although it has been the subject of criticism by medical professionals, who find the method more artificial than scientific, thousands of young and new parents from no less than 15 countries are vouching for it. Dunstan essentially breaks down babies’ cries into basic needs that, by listening closely, will help parents get the sleep they need at night without being disturbed by their newborn baby.

“By recognizing what the baby needs, you’ll be better equipped at meeting those needs,” Dr. Adhiatma says. “The reason why new parents are sometimes at a loss as to how to care for their newborns is because there’s no set manual for it; everything has to be done by experience – and listening to what your baby needs is the key.”

Dr. Cynthia is one of the skeptics. As someone who has been in the profession for more than 20 years, she finds Priscilla’s method to be a little superstitious, at best.

“I’ve heard of this method, but I’ve never been interested in discovering more about it,” she says. “It just seems ridiculous to me to generalize the way all babies communicate. Still, there may be some merit to it: a five-syllabic language is better than no language at all.”

“I’ve asked several hospitals here [in Indonesia] whether they would like to teach this method to new parents,” Dr. Adhiatma says. “But they’ve all declined on the grounds that this method has not yet been rigorously tested and tried. Basically, they don’t acknowledge it as scientific.”

A few months ago, Dr. Adhiatma became the first Indonesian physician to pass the tests, given by the Dunstan Baby Language organization based in Australia, to become a licensed educator. He said it wasn’t easy to distinguish the noises that babies make; but after listening carefully, he got the hang of it pretty quickly.

“Now, I have nurses asking me to teach them how to do it,” he says. “And I tell them I’ll be more than happy to teach them this method, because we need to spread the word – and let parents get the benefit of Priscilla Dunstan’s discovery.”

Word has it that Mommeworld has been optioned to branch out as far as the United States, where it will run the same services, except from a different domain. This, says Dr. Adhiatma, would be the icing on the cake.

“If it happens,” he says. “Then, I don’t know – it’ll be beyond everything I’ve ever dreamed of. So let’s just hope it does.”

 In the meantime, the doctor has his hands full with moms and their screaming babies.

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