Table 4 Educational information for a pregnancy app or other digital health solution.

Support and information about initial pregnancy stages before the first doctor’s appointment (at 8-9 weeks) and before the 20-week morphology scan

“A lot of us on the app [Peanut], were very worried, like, you know, who had confirmed pregnancies only based on the home kit, but who had to wait till the eighth or the ninth week… And it was just such a real experience for me because, you know, you don’t know what it is like till the time you actually go for your first ultrasound…So I think some sort of support in the very initial phases that will be useful to incorporate in a pregnancy app. (nervous tone throughout)” [IP 11].

Not only information about fetal development (and fruit comparison), but information about how the female body changes during pregnancy

“…And I think what would have been great was to understand how my body’s changing, how my hips are spreading apart, the strains putting on my muscles, and then things I can do to help with that, to help manage that pain…Even then having like a digital tool to help you understand like, you know, there’s loads of things that help you visualize how your baby’s developing, but there’s less about how your body’s changing, and then what you can do to help you understand and help you manage that would be super helpful” [IP 13].

Pregnancy specific guidelines within the app to help interpret tests such as blood tests and risk factors (related to pre-pregnancy BMI)

“I think there’s still a space for a really good pregnancy tracking app that shows, you know, all of the common things that they’re looking for you. You take millions of blood tests, and they give you back like all of these, like, random numbers that you spend a bajillion years trying to figure out what they mean…My chart [the app] is the thing that most people use. They’re all calibrated for non-pregnant people. And so, the app will come back and tell you that you have, you know, you have an elevated white cell blood count. And it’s like, who cares all pregnant women have an elevated white blood cell count, which is only after a bunch of googling…And so there’s this situation where the medical system is giving you this data, but there’s nothing useful to interpret it at all (frustrated tone). And the tools that they give you for interpretation often aren’t geared towards pregnancy. And so having an app that would show me how things were progressing on all of these things that they were tracking…It would have been really, really nice” [IP 3].

Breast feeding - information about diverse experiences and the top 10 common complaints or problems postpartum

“…honestly, for me, the biggest information gap came with breastfeeding. Um, and I definitely, I felt like a complete absence of support, especially from health care providers in that regard. And so, if there had been resources related to breastfeeding, that were a little bit beyond just sort of, like, you know, your baby should latch. I don’t know, it was just terrible” [Participant IP 15].