One day, while I was pregnant with my second son, I attended a barbecue for a friend's birthday. My friend's mother started discussing her experience of being pregnant with him during the 1970s. "I drank coffee and chain smoked every day," she told me, flicking away her cigarette ashes.
Pregnancy has changed a lot since then, hasn't it? My friend turned out okay all things considered, but his mother's pregnancy regimen wouldn't pass muster in today's world of gestation. Nowadays, mothers can't allow themselves near any potentially impure substances without eliciting shrieks of dismay from well-intentioned mommy-watchers.
What's a pregnant lady to do? Download an app, of course! Pregnancy Companion II is an app for Android and iOS developed by Dr. Jan Rydfors and Dr. Aron Schuftan. With a combined 25 years of experience and thousands of babies delivered, this team is more than qualified to offer pregnancy advice.
Like all sources of baby development information, this app compares your baby's weekly dimensions to pieces of produce ("It's the size of a lemon" or "Your baby has the dimensions of a sweet potato"). You also get pictures and 3D developmental videos that depict what your baby may look like in utero.
The app pushes daily and weekly pregnancy advice, and it allows you to record your water consumption and your calories for the day. In addition to nutrition guidelines and a weight tracker, because no, you can't eat whatever you want without reprisal during your pregnancy, the app delivers recipes from dietitian Eileen Behan, who is author of "The Pregnancy Diet."
In addition to encyclopedic topic entries based on common pregnancy questions, the app contains a comprehensive database of medications and lets you know whether or not you can take them during pregnancy. For other questions, you can use the "Ask the Doctors" feature, which transmits your question to Drs. Rydfors and Schuftan.
Pregnancy is full of mysterious aches and pains. Pregnancy Companion II contains information about acupressure points for addressing some of these difficulties. It also contains information about prenatal yoga poses.
You can count kicks, track your doctor's appointments and peruse lists of baby names. You can also crowdsource the community with questions like, "What should I pack in my pregnancy bag?" (Answer: Your own pajamas, pillow and blanket—trust me on this). When the big day comes, you can use the contraction timer to decide whether or not to go to the hospital.
The app costs $4.99, which is well worth it, particularly since it contains the "Ask the Doctors" feature. While you certainly know not to swill coffee and smoke Marlboros every day, you probably have many other questions about how to have a healthy pregnancy. Having those answers at your fingertips can ease a lot of pregnant mom worries.
Edited by
Jamie Epstein
