App Review: Pregnancy Tracker from WhatToExpect.com

Category: Health and Fitness
Price: Free
TiP Rating: 4.5/5 stars
Release Date: 1/9/2010
Version: 3.2
Seller: Ryan Bond
Rated: 4+
Requirements: Compatible with iPhone and iPod Touch, requires OS 2.2.1  or later.

App Store Description: Read the book? Use the site? Now you can download What to Expect When You’re Expecting, the app – for FREE! Keep track of your baby’s development – and your fast-growing belly – with this exciting new app from Heidi Murkoff’s What to Expect When You’re Expecting, America’s pregnancy bible.

Summary: This app is pretty much all you’ll need to know what’s going on while you or your partner is pregnant. It’s stuffed full of useful information, and keeps you informed for the whole 40 weeks until the bundle of joy arrives in this world. Even if you’re one of those people that likes to get advice from “real” people and not a book, there is access to loads of different forums where all-sorts share their experiences.

Review: I don’t know about you, but I remember the first time I heard the news that my wife was expecting a child. It’s a strong and vivid memory, I’d just got home from university, my wife was on the landing outside our bathroom, she waited until I’d walked up and said “we’re having a baby!” After it had all sunk in a few days later I realized I had no idea how to prepare myself, I didn’t know what to expect. At that time, this app would have been a life saver. After a few weeks we purchased the “What to expect” book, which weighed around half a ton, and cut off the blood supply to my feet if I sat with it on my lap for too long. I’m so grateful it’s been made in to a mobile app.

To start with, then, when you first open the tool you choose how you want to calculate at which stage you are at. The three options are: estimated due dat, last menstruation period or date of conception. From the data you input it calculates how long you have left, the gestational age, which trimester and how big your baby is now. All this data is shown on the home screen. It’s great that this info has been put all together, for me, numbers and figures are really important, and I love knowing that my baby is the size of a lime or big plum.

From here you can navigate to any of the other sections of the app. The “weekly” tab gives you access to what to expect during the next week; how your body is changing, why you feel unwell, quick tips to help with symptoms, and of course how the little life inside you/your partner is developing. Then, there is the “daily tab”, which gives you different little trinkets of advice, sometimes for the dad, sometimes for the mum, practical things like whether you should whiten your teeth, dye your hair, take vitamins, etc. I love how useful this information can be.

After this you come across the “photos” section, where you can take pictures of the ever increasing bump. “Forums” is the newest addition to the app, it gives you access to a whole host of forums designed specifically for different people, from “working moms” to “blended and multicultural families”. Possibly the most practical of forums is at the top, “Your Monthly Forum”, this is a forum for everyone using the app who’s expecting to give birth in the same month as you. You get to share stories about how it’s affecting you physically, mentally or emotionally.

There really isn’t much wrong at all with this app, however, there are ways it could improve. One interesting feature I’d like to see in future updates is seeing 3D ultrasound scan pictures, it would add a new dimension, and could replace the rather dated looking drawn pictures displayed currently. On the whole though, this is a really great tool, I love having it handy, it sure beats carrying around a 1,000 page lump.