Pregnancy apps are more popular as patients use the internet to seek information about pregnancy and childbirth.1 Research has shown that over 50% of pregnant patients download apps focused on pregnancy, with an average of 3 being tried.2 This is especially true during the COVID-19 pandemic, when patients seek information but may want to minimize clinical exposures. Other research has shown that women primarily use apps to monitor fetal development and to obtain information on nutrition and antenatal care.3
We identified apps and rated their contents and features.4 To identify the apps, we performed a Google search to mimic what a patient may do. We scored the identified apps based on what has been shown to make apps successful, as well as desired functions of the most commonly used apps. The quality of the applications was relatively varied, with many of the apps (60%) not having comprehensive information for every stage of pregnancy and no app attaining a perfect score. However, the top 3 apps had near perfect scores of 15/16 and 14/16, missing points only for having advertisements and requiring an internet connection.
The table details these top 3 recommended pregnancy apps, along with a detailed shortened version of the APPLICATIONS scoring system, APPLI (App comprehensiveness, Price, Platform, Literature Used, Other special features). We hope this column will help you feel comfortable in helping patients use pregnancy apps, should they ask for recommendations.
