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Awareness, Preferences, and Willingness to Download Pregnancy Health Management Apps Among Women in Louisiana:
Priyanka Chaudhary1, Alexis Bourgeois1, Renee Underwood2
1Pediatric Obesity and Health Behavior Laboratory, Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Baton Rouge, LA, United States.
Background:
Pregnancy is a critical life stage that requires comprehensive health management. Pregnancy health management apps offer accessible support for prenatal and postpartum care, yet behavioral factors and preferences influencing their adoption remain unclear.
Objective:
We aimed to describe confidence, awareness, perceived health priorities, preferred app features, and willingness to download or pay for pregnancy health management apps among women in Louisiana. The primary outcome was willingness to download a pregnancy health management app.
Methods:
A cross-sectional, web-based, 10-minute, structured survey was conducted by MESH LLC from March 2025 to April 2025 among 597 women in Louisiana via the Alchemer platform. Eligible respondents identified as women and either had children aged <21 years or had no children but were pregnant or hoped to become pregnant. The survey comprised six domains: (1) sociodemographic and pregnancy characteristics, (2) confidence in maintaining a healthy pregnancy weight, (3) awareness of pregnancy health apps, (4) perceived importance of pregnancy-related health topics, (5) preferred app features, and (6) willingness to download or pay for a pregnancy health management app. Items were multiple-choice, Likert-scale, or ranked. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, exact tests for bivariate comparisons, and ordinal logistic regression.
Results:
Respondents were predominantly aged 31 to 40 years (258/597, 43.2%), married (359/597, 60.1%), and college educated (205/597, 34.3%). Most respondents (321/597, 53.8%) reported being very or extremely confident in maintaining a healthy weight during pregnancy. Among respondents routed to the survey item assessing the likelihood of downloading a pregnancy health management app, 94.8% (201/212) were "somewhat likely," "very likely," or "definitely willing" to download a pregnancy health management app. The most frequently downloaded or used apps were Pregnancy & Baby Tracker (224/597, 37.5%) and BabyCenter (211/597, 35.3%). Managing stress and mental health (mean 8.36, SD 2.34), along with understanding which foods are safe during pregnancy (mean 8.21, SD 2.36), ranked as the most important health priorities. Among respondents routed to the preferred-feature and payment-preference questions, postpartum support (135/205, 65.9%), kick counters and contraction timers (113/205, 55.1%), and bump trackers and photo progress tools (112/205, 54.6%) were among the most desired app features. Adjusted analyses showed limited evidence of sociodemographic differences in willingness. Respondents with annual household incomes of >US $150,000 had lower odds of reporting greater willingness than those with incomes of
Conclusions:
Women demonstrated high willingness to download pregnancy health management apps, with a strong interest in mental health, nutrition, and postpartum support. Willingness was high across the pregnancy-relevant subgroup, with limited evidence of consistent sociodemographic differences in download intention. Future studies should examine actual app uptake, engagement, and effectiveness in diverse pregnant and postpartum populations.