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New app available to help mums-to-be in Oxfordshire

19/02/2020
This article is more than four years old.

Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, together with Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust and Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust, has just launched a new mum & baby app - a definitive personal guide for pregnancy, birth, and beyond.

The app aims to provide women with a single source of trusted NHS information for all their maternity needs at all the maternity units across Oxfordshire in line with NHS England Better Births agenda committed to provide safe, kind, and personalised care.

It was originally developed by Chelsea and Westminster Hospital and their charity CW+ with Imagineear, and has evolved with new 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, local authorities and research.

From the start of pregnancy to early parenthood, this app will support women and their families with:

  • choice on where in Oxfordshire they would like to give birth and preferences around care
  • access to essential, clinically-validated information every step of the way from being pregnant, to giving birth and looking after a new baby
  • personalised plans for their care during pregnancy, birth, and beyond.

The app offers an easy-to-navigate screen, multiple links and videos of a range of useful topics including emotional and physical wellbeing, mental health concerns, advice for partners, preparing for labour, your stay in hospital, post-birth care, baby care basics, mum and baby checks, recovering from different types of births, and medical conditions and advice for when you get home.

Personal preferences for each stage of the maternity journey can be documented and stored within the app for sharing with care providers, generating conversations that support collaborative and personalised care plans.

Crucially, the app provides users with a single point of access for information on booking in their local area to receive higher levels of continuity of care.

Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, and Berkshire Maternity integrated Care Systems collated feedback from service users throughout the app work stream to ensure it would deliver on choice, information, and functionality.

Claire Frenwen, mum and chair of the volunteering group Oxfordshire Maternity Voice Partnership, said: "It's fantastic having an app which is specific to your place of birth. It's easy to use, very user friendly, and so handy having it all on your phone. I can't wait to see what the app offers as it grows and develops!"

The app aims to improve women's experiences of maternity care and ensures that the information they receive is consistent no matter where they choose to give birth in the local area.

Oxfordshire's Better Births Midwife from Oxford University Hospitals, Heidi Ottosen, said: "This fantastic new app means we are able to offer more personalised care to women and their families in Oxfordshire, and ensure they are able to access information easily and quickly.

"The mum & baby app shows how we can harness digital technology innovation in the NHS delivering a new model of continuity of care.  We hope this technology will enable and empower women to make shared decisions and manage their own care throughout their pregnancy."

The app is available to download in both iOS and Android formats - go to your app store (Apple Store or GooglePlay) and search 'mum and baby'.

For women who prefer not to use apps or are unable to do so, information booklets are available to download online together with the personal care plans.

Those are also available in other languages, and can be accessed and downloaded online.

Maternity information booklet and personal care plans