An app designed by a team from Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has been adopted by six more local maternity services across the NHS in England.
The Mum & Baby app was originally developed by Dr Sunita Sharma, consultant obstetrician at the trust, and co-designed with mothers and partners, midwives, doctors, health visitors, mental health specialists, physiotherapists and infant feeding leads from across North West London.
The trust’s charity CW+ and healthcare app developers Imagineear also helped develop the technology as part of the CW Innovation programme.
The announcement that six more local maternity services (LMS) are adopting Mum & Baby means that almost 25% of all LMSs in England will be represented in the app, enabling thousands more users access to bespoke content, local advice and contacts.
Now in its fourth version the app has evolved with new, clinically-robust content led by North West London local maternity system to deliver on the ambitions of the NHS Better Births report involving mums, midwives and doctors, Royal Colleges and local authorities to provide women and their family with a single source of trusted, clinically-evidenced and locally-relevant information on pregnancy, birth and beyond, available at their fingertips.
The app also includes almost real-time updates of Public Health England’s advice on Covid-19 for pregnant women and new mothers, and has been included in ORCHA’s Covid-19 Health App Library.
Dr Sharma said: “The Mum & Baby app shows how clinicians can innovate through collaboration and harness digital technology to empower women and their families. Over the last five years, we have been able to co-design the app, adapting it to meet the needs of women and their families.
“We’re thrilled that more parents across the country can now benefit from the clinician-validated information in the Mum & Baby app, which also encourages mothers to make personal care plans and provides them with locally relevant health and wellbeing information they can access. We continue to work on further enhancements directly in response to recent national maternity reports and ongoing parent feedback.”
The Mum & Baby app is one of 80 innovation projects within the CW Innovation programme, which is jointly led by the Trust and CW+.
CW+ is one of our partners for the Digital Health Rewired Pitchfest – a competition which brings together the best and brightest healthcare IT startups. Pitchfest is part of Digital Health Rewired, a virtual 5 day festival celebrating the best of digital health. To find out more, or register, visit digitalhealthrewired.com.