BabyBump Review

Pregnancy is an amazing and scary time for most women. This is especially true for your first baby (at least it was for my wife). One way a lot of women cope with all of the uncertainties is by consuming all of the information they can find about their body, what is happening to the baby, and the all famous question “is this normal?”.

My wife would spend hours a week combing through a myriad of website telling her exactly what the baby was doing right this second. The goal of BabyBump, by Alt12 Apps is to give you all this information right at your fingertips. It costs $3.99 on the catalog. This is more than a lot of apps out there, but if you compare this to just one pregnancy book, it looks like an absolute steal.

What is most striking about this app is its look. All the buttons are custom, the pictures are very nice, and even the text is well laid out. I have yet to see an app with this much polish. Kudos to the art department on this one.

So it looks great, but what does it do? First, it tells you what the baby is doing this week: how much it weighs, how big it is, and what changes are occurring. Secondly, it tells you what is going on with your body during the week, what to expect, and help with the “is it supposed to look like THAT?!” question that comes up every other day. Third, you can keep a simple journal. What your weight is and how big your waist has become (there is even a nice graph to show you what your body has been through), how you are feeling during the day, and what cravings you have had. Finally, you can keep track of it all with pictures.

The journal feature is nice, but I felt it was pretty bare-bones. Now, no one wants to answer 500 questions on their phone, but I think they could add a few more for those who want to keep track of every detail.

Other features are a kick counter (important to gauge the baby’s health and activeness), and a contraction timer to help you decide if it is time to go to the hospital. Another nice touch is that you can email your kick counter results and your journal entries with a click of a button (yes…even the emails are styled and look great).

The one thing I found missing was some sort of online integration. I get the feeling this is in the works because when you login the first time it asks you if you want to register. I think being able to view the information you have stored on the web (and maybe even expand it) would take the app to a whole new level. At the very least, it would be great if all your information was backed up on the web in case your phone explodes.

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