The Healthy Pregnancy Research Program: transforming pregnancy research through a ResearchKit app

Area of Science:

• Digital health
• Maternal health research
• Mobile health (mHealth)

Background:

• Maternal morbidity and mortality in the US are high compared to other developed nations.
• Pregnant women are under-represented in research, leading to gaps in evidence-based care.
• Smartphone app usage is prevalent among pregnant women, offering a unique research opportunity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and evaluate the first pregnancy research app integrated into a popular self-management application.
• To leverage a large-scale, smartphone-based platform for collecting diverse data on healthy pregnancies.
• To enhance understanding of factors promoting maternal and fetal well-being.

Main Methods:

• Developed a novel pregnancy research app embedded within an existing maternal self-management app.
• Collected longitudinal survey and sensor-generated data (sleep, activity, blood pressure, heart rate) from participants.
• Enrolled 2058 pregnant women across all 50 US states, forming a diverse cohort.

Main Results:

• Collected 14,045 surveys and 107,102 daily measurements within 9 months.
• Achieved an average participant engagement of 59 days, with 45% completing outcome surveys.
• Demonstrated the feasibility of a smartphone platform for capturing extensive, objective, and subjective data from a growing, diverse pregnant population.

Conclusions:

• Smartphone-based research platforms are effective for large-scale data acquisition in maternal health.
• This approach can significantly improve the understanding of factors contributing to healthy pregnancies.
• The study highlights the potential of mHealth to bridge research gaps in obstetrics and gynecology.