healthcare Article Association of Maternal Observation and Motivation (MOM) Program with m-Health Support on Maternal and Newborn Health Premalatha Paulsamy 1 , Vigneshwaran Easwaran 2 , Rizwan Ashraf 3 , Shadia Hamoud Alshahrani 1 , Krishnaraju Venkatesan 4, * , Absar Ahmed Qureshi 4 , Mervat Moustafa Arrab 1,5 , Kousalya Prabahar 6 , Kalaiselvi Periannan 7 , Rajalakshimi Vasudevan 4 , Geetha Kandasamy 2 , Kumarappan Chidambaram 4 , Ester Mary Pappiya 8 , Kumar Venkatesan 9 and Vani Manoharan 10   Citation: Paulsamy, P.; Easwaran, V.; Ashraf, R.; Alshahrani, S.H.; Venkatesan, K.; Qureshi, A.A.; Arrab, M.M.; Prabahar, K.; Periannan, K.; Vasudevan, R.; et al. Association of Maternal Observation and Motivation (MOM) Program with m-Health Support on Maternal and Newborn Health. Healthcare 2021, 9, 1629. https://doi.org/10.3390/ healthcare9121629 Academic Editor: Veronique Demers-Mathieu Received: 27 October 2021 Accepted: 21 November 2021 Published: 25 November 2021 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). 1 College of Nursing, Mahalah Branch for Girls, King Khalid University, Khamis Mushaiyt 61421, Saudi Arabia; pponnuthai@kku.edu.sa (P.P.); shalshrani@kku.edu.sa (S.H.A.); marb@kku.edu.sa (M.M.A.) 2 Department of Clinical Pharmacy, College of Pharmacy, King Khalid University, Abha 62529, Saudi Arabia; vickku.e@gmail.com (V.E.); glakshmi@kku.edu.sa (G.K.) 3 Department of Pharmacology, University College of Medicine and Dentistry, The University of Lahore, Lahore 55150, Pakistan; drriz72@yahoo.com 4 Department of Pharmacology, College of Pharmacy, King Khalid University, Abha 62529, Saudi Arabia; aqureshi@kku.edu.sa (A.A.Q.); raja@kku.edu.sa (R.V.); kumarappan@kku.edu.sa (K.C.) 5 Family and Community Health Nursing, Faculty of Nursing, Menoufia University, Shibin el Kom 32511, Egypt 6 Department of Pharmacy Practice, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Tabuk, Tabuk 71491, Saudi Arabia; kgopal@ut.edu.sa 7 Department of Mental Health Nursing, Oxford School of Nursing & Midwifery, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford OX3 0FL, UK; kperiannan@brookes.ac.uk 8 Regional Nursing Administration, Directorate of General Health Affair, Ministry of Health, Najran 21431, Saudi Arabia; epappiya@moh.gov.sa 9 Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, College of Pharmacy, King Khalid University, Abha 62529, Saudi Arabia; kumarve@kku.edu.sa 10 Georgia CTSA, Emory University Hospital, Atlanta, GA 30078, USA; vani.manoharan@emoryheslthcare.org * Correspondence: kvenkatesan@kku.edu.sa Abstract: Maternal and child nutrition has been a critical component of health, sustainable develop- ment, and progress in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). While a decrement in maternal mortality is an important indicator, simply surviving pregnancy and childbirth does not imply better maternal health. One of the fundamental obligations of nations under international human rights law is to enable women to endure pregnancy and delivery as an aspect of their enjoyment of reproductive and sexual health and rights and to live a dignified life. The aim of this study was to discover the correlation between the Maternal Observation and Motivation (MOM) program and m-Health support for maternal and newborn health. A comparative study was done among 196 pregnant mothers (study group—94; control group—102 mothers) with not less than 20 weeks of gestation. Maternal outcomes such as Hb and weight gain and newborn results such as birth weight and crown–heel length were obtained at baseline and at 28 and 36 weeks of gestation. Other secondary data collected were abortion, stillbirth, low birth weight, major congenital malformations, twin or triplet pregnancies, physical activity, and maternal well-being. The MOM intervention included initial face-to-face education, three in-person visits, and eight virtual health coaching sessions via WhatsApp. The baseline data on Hb of the mothers show that 31 (32.98%) vs. 27 (28.72%) mothers in the study and control group, respectively, had anemia, which improved to 27.66% and 14.98% among study group mothers at 28 and 36 weeks of gestation (p < 0.001). The weight gain (p < 0.001), level of physical activity (p < 0.001), and maternal well-being (p < 0.01) also had significant differences after the intervention. Even after controlling for potentially confounding variables, the maternal food practices regression model revealed that birth weight was directly correlated with the consumption of milk (p < 0.001), fruits (p < 0.01), and green vegetables (p < 0.05). As per the physical activity and maternal well-being regression model, the birth weight and crown–heel length were strongly related Healthcare 2021, 9, 1629. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare9121629 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/healthcare