Texting to promote expecting and new moms’ health and wellbeing
SmartMom
We live in a world with no shortage of information, yet getting timely, evidence-based guidance on pregnancy and parenting can still be a challenge. Less than 30% of Canadian parents attend prenatal classes due to cost of classes, transportation barriers, or even stigma. Those who rely on the internet for guidance may suffer from information overload and even faulty information.
For Dr. Patricia Janssen, a UBC Professor in Public Health who developed SmartMom and SmartParent, this challenge in connecting with high-quality information poses serious issues for both mom and baby. “If expecting or new moms have been making poor health decisions or experiencing health issues for quite some time before seeing a care provider – that’s too late,” she says. “If we want to promote physically and mentally healthy pregnancies, postpartum experiences and newborn health, then we need to proactively give people the right information at the right time.”
This can include guidance on lifestyle changes, help-seeking, and even simple things like remembering when to book an appointment.
SmartMom is an automated one-way text messaging service that launched in 2017 as a means to deliver information to Northern British Columbians who couldn’t access prenatal classes. “Most people have a mobile phone” says Patti. “So we thought, why not try sending them some of the information they’d receive in prenatal classes by text?” SmartParent, started in 2020, offers similar messages to new parents throughout baby’s first year. Expecting and new parents sign up with their mobile phone number and start receiving customized text messages based on the user’s gestational period or their baby’s age.
SmartMom/Parent has been used by more than 14,000 people in BC, and versions for remote Indigenous communities and teen parents are under development. This year, the SmartMom/Parent team is conducting a large-scale randomized controlled trial and working with strategists at Spring Impact to develop a strategy for scaling across Canada.