Pregnancy On Palm

• A mobile phone app for the pregnant women on Palm Island – they download, register including the estimated date of birth of their baby
• ‘Home’ pages (Weeks 1-42) provide information about what is going on in their pregnancy at that time – the app opens at their current gestation according to the estimated date of birth they entered
• ‘Read more’ at the bottom of each ‘Home’ page has some information about a specific topic relevant to that gestation e.g. 14 weeks – ‘What is domestic violence’
• ‘Forum’ – was supposed to be a place where women can post and have conversations – they do not use it so we use it to provide ad hoc information
• ‘Resources’ – long list of links to websites/videos/pdfs of relevant topics
• ‘Checklist’ – list of standard appointments and activities during pregnancy. The woman can tick them off if she wants (not monitored). If the date arrives and item not ticked she will get a notification.
• ‘Messages’ – messages (text and photos) can be sent between the woman and the staff through the portal. No messaging between phones.
• ‘Notifications’ – Staff can send notifications from the portal e.g. ‘Midwife Jane on leave. Midwife Clarissa in clinic today’. Also sends a notification if checklist item due, they have a message, or something posted in forum relevant to them.

Aims:
• Provide information that is flexible to the unique needs of each woman and aids in the midwives’ and health worker’s holistic and culturally safe care of the woman, baby and family
• Provide evidence-based information to promote normal physiological pregnancy and birth, and care of the baby, and support the woman’s decision making
• Allow an extra mode of communication between the woman, the midwives and health worker in a community setting where communication can be difficult.

Helps with patient care (when its working):

• Provides information to women and families
• Extra avenue of communication between midwifery team and women
• Reminds women of standard appointments
• Allows midwifery team to send out notifications – e.g. ‘no midwives on Palm today due to bad weather’