Conclusions
The high maternal satisfaction related to the use of SAS videos suggests that there may be a role for SAS videos in augmenting widely adopted interventions like MomConnect. Especially as internet access and smartphone penetration increase across South Africa, there may be a growing role for innovative approaches that encourage engagement with perinatal health services through high-satisfaction, easily scalable add-ons, like SAS videos.While policy makers in South Africa continue to promote readily scalable interventions like MomConnect, they should consider enhancing such programs through the addition of content-aligned interventions like the Amandla Mama SAS video series to enhance user satisfaction and potentially boost engagement with perinatal health messages. Furthermore, for mothers who lack access to maternity clinics, the provision of MomConnect and SAS videos may be an effective way to transmit critical perinatal health messages to hard-to-reach communities in ways that overcome education and literacy barriers. Because of the “glocalizable” character designs used in the Amandla Mama series, these videos could also easily and cost-effectively be adapted for other language groups in South Africa and other countries. Health promotion agencies in South Africa might even consider translating and dubbing short, animated video content to make it accessible for all South African mothers—a potentially powerful step toward overcoming both language and literacy barriers to maternal health education.The authors would like to acknowledge the mothers who participated in this study. Thank you for your time and for sharing your insights with us. We wish to thank our talented animator, Janine Van Schoor, our colleagues at the Clinton Health Access Initiative in South Africa who supported and oversaw the implementation of this study, particularly our research assistants, Rendani Mufhadi, Lerato Molwane, and Tshegofatso Hlahaswane, the Digital Medic South Africa Program for working with us to develop the video prototypes, and the organization that funded this work: the German Aerospace Centre.Conflicts of Interest: None declared.Empirical density distribution of the total knowledge score and Maternal Knowledge Survey.Perinatal mental health.Nutrition in pregnancy.Kangaroo Mother Care.Recognizing pregnancy.Alcohol avoidance.Benefits of breastfeeding.Danger signs in the newborn period.Complementary feeding.Immunizations.Danger signs in pregnancy.CONSORT-eHEALTH checklist (V 1.6.1).