The Stillbirth Centre of Research Excellence and the University of Sydney have partnered with UK charity Best Beginnings to use the pregnancy and parenting app, Baby Buddy to increase awareness of stillbirth risk and prevention. The project was funded by the Education and Awareness Grant awarded to the Stillbirth CRE by the Department of Health.
The adapted Baby Buddy Australia app presents a novel platform to promote the Safer Baby Bundle and increase awareness of modifiable risk factors for stillbirth in late pregnancy.
The project was multi-faceted and conducted in two phases.
Phase 1: November 21 – April 23: Evaluation and Adaptation, Engagement and Planning and Creation of new content
Phase 2: May 23- August 23: App Pilot, Promotion and Engagement and Evaluation
Phase 1 summary:
The Baby Buddy content was adapted to an Australian context ensuring that the App’s daily messages contain information that is appropriate for Australia and is aligned with the National Pregnancy Care Guidelines.
Focus groups and interviews were conducted with 10 women attending the Sydney Local Health District to determine suitability of the 11 videos with content that supported the SBB.
Overall feedback was that the videos were of high quality and interesting to watch.
An important recommendation was that all resources shown (posters and pamphlets etc) needed to be Australian, and that the timing of tests and scans mentioned in the videos should be aligned with Australian clinical guidelines.
Based on the feedback, six videos were not included in the Australian version of Baby Buddy, and scripts for eleven new videos, each representing an element of the SBB, were developed.
Following a review of the UK video content, in combination with feedback from focus groups, it was determined that eleven new videos reflecting elements of SBB were also created to adequately represent the SBB in the Australian context.
Phase 2 summary:
The adapted version of Baby Buddy Australia was piloted in two NSW local health districts, The Sydney Local Health District (Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and The Canterbury Hospital) and the Western NSW Local Health District (Mudgee Hospital, Cowra Hospital, Parkes, and Forbes Health Services).
The piloting provided an opportunity for Baby Buddy to play a role in complementing the information health professionals were able to provide.
Following the presentation on the adaptation of Baby Buddy to suit Australian users, an interactive education session on features of the app was undertaken.
Most participants of the education session agreed that Baby Buddy Australia would support The First 2000 days Framework by complementing the care being provided at each site.
Evaluation was carried out via pre (n=621 participants) and post (n=34) implementation surveys of pregnant women and health care providers. Due to a limited sample size of the post-implementation period, a before-after comparison was not included in the final project report.
Baby Buddy Australia was promoted via Best Beginnings, the Sydney Local Health District, Western NSW Local Health District, and the Stillbirth CRE social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
The Baby Buddy app has had a total of 1119 registrations in Australia over the pilot period.
61.22% of the app users spoke English as their first language, 38.16% stated Other, the rest were unknown.
68% of the app users were in a paid job, with 10.4% on parental leave. 5.3% were students and less than 3% of the users were in an unpaid job, doing an apprenticeship or not employed due to an illness.
The videos on the app were viewed 3310 times and the written articles were viewed 4023 times on the app during the pilot period.
