FeedPal: Understanding opportunities for chatbots in breastfeeding education of women in India

Use of chatbots in different spheres of life is continuously increasing since a couple of years. We attempt to understand the potential of chatbots for breastfeeding education by conducting an Wizard-of-Oz experiment with 22 participants. Our participants included breastfeeding mothers and community health workers from the slum areas of Delhi, India. We prototyped our chatbot as an interactive question-answering application and analyzed users’ interaction patterns, perceptions, and contexts of use. The chatbot use cases emerged primarily as the first line of support. The participants, especially the mothers, were enthusiastic with the opportunity to ask questions and get reliable answers. We also observed the influencing role of female relative, e.g. mothers-in-law, in breastfeeding practices. Our analysis of user information-seeking suggests that a majority of questions (88%) are of nature that can be answered by a chatbot application. We further observe that the queries are embedded deeply into myths and existing belief systems. Therefore requiring the designers to focus on subtle aspects for providing information such as positive reinforcement and contextual sensitivity. Further, we discuss, different societal and ethical issues associated with Chatbot usage for a public health topic such as breastfeeding education. © 2019 Copyright held by the owner/author(s).