A Chinese Survey of Women's Use and Expectation of Pregnancy Applications

This study aimed to explore the use and expectation of smartphone applications about pregnancy among pregnant women using a survey method. A total of five hundreds pregnant women from 3 hospitals in the city of Chengde in hebei province in China were randomly selected to conduct a questionnaire survey. The study found that 61.48% of pregnant women used at least one pregnancy apps, mainly for fetal development information (83.3%) and maternal changes information (65.3%); only 8% of pregnant women worried about the security of personal information very much. The main expected functions of pregnancy apps are prenatal examination reminder (65%) and fetal monitoring (54.7%). Also, 77.3% of pregnant women hoped that information provided pregnancy apps should be recognized by relevant authorities. It indicated that pregnancy apps in the market in China was not able to meet the needs of pregnant women and needed further improvement in future.