Pregnant women across the Hunter in their second trimester are being called to trial a smartphone app that assists with diet management during pregnancy.
Developed by HMRI, the app focuses on nutrition through monitoring carbohydrate intake and portion sizes.
Dietician and PhD candidate Hannah Brown says that the app uses augmented reality to help pregnant women track what they are eating, potentially eliminating health problems in the future.
"Diet is really important during pregnancy, and we're focusing on carbohydrate intake in our study because previous research has found that high blood sugar levels in pregnancy can lead to negative health outcomes for both mother and baby, including birth complications as well as an increased risk of developing Type 2 diabetes later in life."
Brown says that they hope the app will make keeping up with diet and nutrition during pregnancy a simpler process.
"We're hoping that the app will make pregnant women more aware of how much they are eating, and preliminary results are already finding that that's the case," she says.
"So we're hoping that the nutrition information in the app is also really helpful for them because we know that there's a lot of misinformation about nutrition."
Brown says that the feedback has so far been positive.
"We're finding that the pregnant women are really enjoying using the app, they're finding it really easy to use, it's making them more aware of how much food they're eating," she says.
"They're also really enjoying the nutrition information in the app, and that's because it's specifically tailored for pregnant women, and it's using evidence-based resources, again to ease that confusion."
