Skip to main content

BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article

Front. Public Health
Sec. Digital Public Health
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1368631
This article is part of the Research Topic mHealth and smartphone apps in patient follow-up View all 13 articles

Development of Educative and Monitoring Mobile Application for Pregnant Women in Nigeria

Provisionally accepted
Abdulhammed Opeyemi Babatunde Abdulhammed Opeyemi Babatunde 1,2*ADEJUMOKE IDOWU AYEDE ADEJUMOKE IDOWU AYEDE 1Amalia Colangelo Amalia Colangelo 2Tuan Dung Nguyen Tuan Dung Nguyen 2Abdullahi Aborode Abdullahi Aborode 2Charles Umeh Charles Umeh 2Maria Paula Hernandez Maria Paula Hernandez 2Oluwaseyi Iyanuoluwa Ayede Oluwaseyi Iyanuoluwa Ayede 3Oluwatobiloba Oluwadunni Ayede Oluwatobiloba Oluwadunni Ayede 4
  • 1 University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria
  • 2 MyBelle Digital Maternal and Child Health Organisation, Ibadan, Nigeria
  • 3 Centre for African Newborn Health and Nutrition, Ibadan, Nigeria
  • 4 Babcock University, Ikenne, Nigeria

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Introduction: Nigeria accounts for 20% of all maternal mortality. Recently, more mobile health technology (mHealth) interventions are emerging in sub-Saharan Africa. The potential of mobile applications in maternal care has not been explored in Nigeria. This study describes the process of design, development, and testing of an educative and monitoring mobile app for pregnant women in Nigeria.Method: Using a user-centered design, we conducted semi-structured interviews at each stage of mobile app development with randomly selected pregnant women attending antenatal clinics in Oyo State, Nigeria. The first interview focused on empathy, followed by alpha and beta testing of the mobile application prototype at health facilities.The barriers to accessing perinatal care were the distance to the nearest facility (mean = 3.3km), lack of perinatal education, and cost. Low fidelity prototype of the mobile app was designed with five features. Mobile app increased level of knowledge of preeclampsia by 179%.User feedback from alpha testing informed the development of high-fidelity prototype for beta testing. Ninety-five percent (95%) of pregnant women surveyed were willing to download the mobile app. The final app developed was uploaded on Google Playstore (MyBelle Pregnancy App).: mHealth apps have the potential to increase access to prenatal information and services in Nigeria and may reduce maternal and childhood mortality. This paper has described the process of development of the first indigenous mobile app specifically for pregnant women in Nigeria using a user-centered design thinking approach.

    Keywords: mHealth, Mobile app, Pregnancy, Educative, Monitoring

    Received: 10 Jan 2024; Accepted: 19 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Babatunde, AYEDE, Colangelo, Nguyen, Aborode, Umeh, Hernandez, Ayede and Ayede. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Abdulhammed Opeyemi Babatunde, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.