JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Perinatal healthcare is critically important to maternal infant health outcomes. The U.S. fares considerably worse than comparable countries for maternal and infant mortality rates. As such, alternative models of care or engagement are warranted. Ubiquitous digital devices and increased utilization of digital health tools have the potential to extend the reach to women and infants in their everyday lives and make positive impacts to their health outcomes. As voice technology become more mainstream, research is prudent to establish evidence-based practice on how to best leverage voice to promote maternal infant health.

Objective:

Our primary aim was to assess the feasibility of using voice technology to support perinatal health and infant-care practices.

Methods:

Perinatal women were recruited from a large Midwest children’s hospital via hospital email announcements and word of mouth. Due to technical aspects of the intervention, participants were required to speak English and use an iPhone. Demographics, patterns of technology use, and technology use specific to perinatal health and/or self-care practices were assessed at baseline. Next, participants were onboarded and asked to use the intervention, SMILE, over the course of two weeks. SMILE provided users with perinatal health content delivered through mini-podcasts (ranging 3-8 minutes in duration). After each podcast, SMILE prompted users to provide immediate verbal feedback to the content. An exit interview was conducted with participants’ to gather feedback on the intervention and further explore participants’ perceptions of voice technology as a means to support perinatal health in the future.

Results:

19 pregnant women (ranging 17-36 weeks pregnant) were consented. Themes identified as important for perinatal health information include: establishing routines, expected norms and realistic expectations, and providing key takeaways. Themes identified important for voice interaction include: customization and user preferences, privacy, family and friends, and context and convenience. Qualitative analysis suggested that perinatal health promotion content delivered by voice should be accurate, succinctly delivered, and highlight key takeaways. Perinatal health interventions that use voice should provide users with the ability to customize the intervention, but also provide opportunities to engage family members, particularly spouses. As a number of women multitasked while the intervention was being deployed, future interventions should leverage the convenience of voice technology while also balancing the influence of user context (e.g., timing or ability to listen/talk versus non-voice interaction with the system).

Conclusions:

Findings demonstrate short-term feasibility to disseminate evidence-based perinatal support via podcasts and curate voice-captured data from perinatal women. However, key areas of improvement have been identified specific to perinatal interventions leveraging voice. Findings from this research contribute to future content, design, and delivery considerations of perinatal digital health interventions. Clinical Trial: N/a