Pregnancy Companion Provides Mobile Tips for Expectant Women

by Brian T. Horowitz

Developed by OB-on-the-Go, Pregnancy Companion provides a step-by-step guide to a baby’s arrival. It incorporates advice from ob-gyns and allows expectant mothers to input data on appointments, weight and the number of kicks.

Pregnancy Companion’s Hydration Counter allows users to tap the touch-screen of an Android or iOS device to record the number of glasses for daily fluid intake. Women need to drink enough for both themselves and the baby.

The Status screen of the Pregnancy App allows users to track the weeks and days until the baby’s arrival. It also indicates if the expectant mother has an appointment scheduled.

The app enables expectant mothers to record appointments throughout a pregnancy, including a trip to the ob-gyn.

Pregnancy Companion allows women to research the safety of various medications and find out about their intended use. The animated patient gives a thumbs-up or thumbs-down, depending on the safety of the drug. A word balloon shows the character indicating “Safe,” “Unsafe” or “Call Your Doctor” if a drug’s safety is unclear and may depend on other health factors.

Checklists are helpful tools to prepare for a major life event such as having a child. Pregnancy Companion provides reminders for tasks such as taking prenatal classes and deciding on cloth or disposable diapers.

When you’re expecting a baby, there’s a lot to keep track of, including whether someone is on call to help with the newborn and whether the baby will have a room in the house to sleep.

Pregnancy Companion allows users to send questions to the apps’ creators, Dr. Aaron Schuftan and Dr. Jan Rydfors. Questions are organized in categories such as “general pregnancy.”

Expectant mothers submit questions through the app and get an answer via private email. Some inquiries and responses then appear in the public Q&As within the app.

The contractions screen in the app allows women to record the average duration and intervals of contractions. They can also view a summary of past data on contractions.

The Your Baby & Your Body section provides a guide to how long a baby measures at various stages of gestation. Users can view instructional videos and share the status of the fetus on Twitter or Facebook.

The app provides a topics section where expectant mothers can find out about different aspects of pregnancy as well as medical treatments. An illustration accompanies the descriptions of topics such as tubal pregnancy, in which an egg attaches somewhere else besides the uterus—usually the fallopian tubes, according to WebMD. Other topics include breech births and fetal hiccups, which occur when a baby’s diaphragm muscle contracts.