Access, Use, and Preferences for Technology-Based Perinatal and Breastfeeding Support Among Childbearing Women

Abstract

Technology-Based Perinatal and Breastfeeding Support | Radtke Demirci et al. 29and 82% report using the Internet at least once weekly during pregnancy. A significant proportion of these women also reported the following technology-based sources as "very valuable" for obtaining pregnancy information: pregnancy/birth websites, general medical or health websites, and pregnancy/childbirth apps (Declercq, Sakala, Corry, Applebaum, & Herrlich, Childbearing women regularly seek pregnancy, birth, and infant care information through technologybased media (Romano, 2007). According to the recent Listening to Mothers III survey, almost two-thirds of postpartum mothers within a nationally representative sample of 2,400 women reported signing up for "weekly or so" e-mails about pregnancy and childbirth, ABSTRACTWe surveyed 146 postpartum women who birthed at 34-37 6/7 weeks of gestation and intended to breastfeed about their use of and preferences regarding technology to obtain perinatal and breastfeeding support.Most participants owned smartphones and used technology during pregnancy to track pregnancy data, follow fetal development, address pregnancy concerns, and obtain breastfeeding information. Internet, e-mail, apps, and multiplatform resources were the most popular technologies used and preferred. Demographic differences existed in mobile technology access and preferences for different technologies. In terms of technology-based breastfeeding support, women wanted encouragement, anticipatory guidance, and information about milk production. A nuanced understanding of the technology childbearing women use and desire has the potential to impact clinical care and inform perinatal support interventions.

Pregnancy and health in the age of the Internet: A content analysis of online “birth club” forums

“…Our findings are largely distinct from previous work that has directly queried women (via interviews or surveys) about topics of information-seeking during pregnancy, which has found that the most common information sought online during pregnancy is related to fetal development, nutrition in pregnancy, stages of childbirth, and pregnancy complications [1,6,7,9,12,[30][31][32][33][34][35]. Aside from the topic relating to childbirth, which is analogous to our "labor" topic, the remaining topics either did not arise in our findings (i.e, fetal development) or were not dominant in specific trimesters.…”

Consumer Engagement in Mobile Application (App) Interventions Focused on Supporting Infant Feeding Practices for Early Prevention of Childhood Obesity

“…However, similar to our cross-sectional survey study, an Australian study also reported that women from a higher level of education were more likely to use an app for parenting purposes (11). Despite this being said, the qualitative study described in this paper and findings from other studies (37, 38) have illustrated that mothers from a low socioeconomic background also share an interest in using an app that provides support with infant feeding. The Growing healthy trial, an mHealth intervention on infant feeding, further supports this, as more than half of participants recruited had an education level lower than university (39).…”

Evaluation of a Breastfeeding App in Rural Australia: Prospective Cohort Study

“…Mobile health can be defined as “the use of wireless technology to deliver health services and information on mobile communication devices such as mobile phones, PDAs, Smartphones, monitoring devices, e-book readers and iPods” (García-Gómez et al, 2014, p. 75). To date, researchers have conducted little evaluation into the appropriateness and effectiveness of apps and mobile health as a means of accurate, reliable, and timely information for mothers (Demirci, Cohen, Parker, Holmes, & Bogen, 2016).…”