Mama Check Your Pikin
Saving Children’s Hearts Through Early Detection, Community Care, and Coordinated Treatment
Healthy Hearts for Babies and Newborns
Mama Check Your Pikin is a community-based health innovation designed to prevent avoidable deaths from congenital heart disease (CHD) among children living in low-income urban communities in Nigeria.
The Hidden Crisis
Every year, more than 40,000 children are born with congenital heart defects in Nigeria, yet over 80% are never diagnosed or treated in time. Many die from conditions that are entirely treatable if detected early.
Mama Check Your Pikin exists to change that by finding heart problems early, guiding families through the health system, and ensuring children get the care they need, regardless of income or location.
The Problem
Congenital heart disease is one of the leading causes of preventable child mortality in Nigeria and across Africa.
Most children with CHD are:
• Diagnosed too late, often after severe complications develop
• Repeatedly misdiagnosed at primary care level
• Unable to access specialist tests like echocardiography
• Lost within fragmented referral systems
• Excluded from care due to cost
In high-income countries, 85–90% of children born with CHD survive into adulthood.
In Nigeria, the opposite is true not because treatment is impossible, but because early detection and coordinated care are missing.
Our Solution
Mama Check Your Pikin moves heart care upstream from late emergency rescue to early community-based detection and action.
The programme works across four connected levels:
1. Community & Caregiver Awareness
2. Frontline Health Worker Screening
3. Portable & Digital Diagnostics
4. Coordinated Referral & Care Pathways
- Infants and children (0–10 years) living in low-income urban and peri-urban communities
- Families surviving on less than $5.50 per day
- Mothers and caregivers with limited access to health information
- Overstretched primary healthcare providers
Our Vision
- No child dies from a treatable heart condition because of poverty or geography
- Mothers are empowered, not helpless
- Primary healthcare is a gateway to survival, not a dead end
- African cities build child survival systems that work
