In March our maternity team at Western Health are launching an innovative digital solution that will enable pregnant women and new mothers to have access to information and assistance when they need it.
The EVE App is a mobile application designed to enhance the pregnancy and parenting experience for expectant and new mums in the West by providing them with access to evidence based information relating to pregnancy, birthing and early parenting.
The implementation of the EVE App aims to improve women’s involvement in their own care and improve the quality and timeliness of the information they were seeking regarding pregnancy, birthing and early parenting.
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to us needing to look for other ways for women to engage with us, given restrictions to face to face antenatal care. Many women use Google and commercially available apps or ask on forums when they are seeking information – almost everyone has a smartphone, however unfortunately this often results in misinformation, scaremongering and even sometimes online bullying.
When women book in to have their baby at Western Health, they will receive a SMS inviting them to download the application. This will be linked to their specific booking and their own medical record and will have bank-level encryption to ensure privacy is maintained. Women will receive weekly updates about how their body is changing and baby is growing and have new articles that are relevant to their stage of pregnancy/parenting. They can also search for specific articles or topics that they are interested in.
The EVE app has practical content such including:
- Serious pregnancy symptoms you should never ignore
- What is fetal monitoring?
- Tired cues
- Expressing breast milk
- Babies first 24 hours
- Alcohol, smoking, drugs and medications when breastfeeding.
The educational content is initially available in English, however Western Health will be working collaboratively with the company and other health services to make resources available in other languages in the future.