Major Japanese trading house Marubeni Corp. has launched a health record service app in Indonesia, via a startup, to help mothers track their condition during pregnancy and through a child's early years.

PT Asa Bestari Citta, its wholly owned subsidiary set up in March, is offering DiaryBunda, a maternal and child health handbook app, to keep tabs on checkups and vaccinations and provide reliable information, Marubeni said last week.

Such handbooks, originating in Japan, are believed to help in the fight against poor standards of infant development. In the world's fourth-most populous nation, about 31 percent of around 5 million newborns per year suffer growth impairment, the company said in a statement.

Marubeni's local venture aims to promote the app to parents by joining hands with private hospitals in the Southeast Asian country as there is an urgent demand for improvement in the level of parental knowledge on childbirth and childcare, the statement said. (NNA/Kyodo)

==Kyodo

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