As a doula, I offer non-medical assistance to women and their partners during labour. In preparing for each birth, much thought goes into how the labouring woman will shut out the world and focus on her body, yet increasingly technology is invited into pregnancy and parenting. But is any of it helpful?
Contraction Master
According to its developer, one of the most popular iPhone apps for birth, Contraction Master, "turns the tedious process of tracking contractions into a simple matter of tapping a button", producing a printable record. A few clicks, a shout of "go" and "stop" and, Bob's your obstetrician, your labour in magnificent detail.
A brilliant invention if anyone was interested but, as midwife Lorraine Berry explains, "we just don't need this sort of detail. Speaking to the woman, or watching her closely, is a more useful way of assessing progress in labour. If she listens to her instincts, the time to call a midwife will be apparent." Slavishly timing contractions can disrupt everything the woman's body does to ease her baby into the world.
The birth process is similar to the act that started it off nine months before; and odds are that if your partner had been asked to keep a timesheet of the original event you might well not have ended up pregnant in the first place. As obstetrician Michel Odent, in his 2003 book Birth and Breastfeeding, explains: "In labour and delivery the primitive part of the brain that we share with all other mammals is active. But its functions can be inhibited. You can stop the progress of labour by asking the mother something like 'What is your social security number?'" Similarly, responsibility for telling your partner that a contraction is starting contradicts all that birth physiology requires.
My Baby's Beat
iPhones now allow couples to eavesdrop on their infant in utero. The new app, My Baby's Beat, released this March, has already been downloaded 10,000 times and apparently uses the "phone's microphone to pick up the baby's heartbeat". It uses "highly advanced signal processing and sound amplifying algorithms to imitate a medical stethoscope, allowing one to monitor the uterus in a passive and harmless way". But the Royal College of Midwives has expressed concern that this could encourage women to forgo traditional observations.
Mervi Jokinen, of the Royal College of Midwives, says: "We don't know the implications of mobile phone signals on the human body and especially on the foetus. We've also been told that posters on online forums are suggesting that the app is preferable to more standard monitoring from a midwife via a foetal doppler. Inexpert foetal monitoring can be anxiety- making and, at worst, dangerous"
The developers point out that "under no circumstances can the app replace the professional advice of a doctor or a midwife" and encourage users to switch their phone to flight mode. But, says Jokinen, "Before birth is a time to really develop knowledge of your body and tune in to its amazing capabilities. These apps miss the point, putting another barrier between people and the natural, instinctive process that is pregnancy and birth."
The Wonder Weeks
After a few of my clients enthused about a mysterious set of email bulletins, I took a look at thewonderweeks.com. Based on a book by Hetty Van de Rijt and Frans Plooij, this website identifies milestone weeks in development for babies and toddlers, and ascribes behavioural change (such as problematic sleep and fussiness) to these shifts.
I tend to shy away from anything too prescriptive about a baby's progress, but my last bulletin was scarily accurate, informing me that at 64 weeks my "toddler plays well with the smallest things. Yet there is another side to the toddler time to discover ... whine and squeal".
Emily Mason, with two children under the age of three, found the bulletins sanity-saving: "Once I'd read the email, I'd be on the look out for the fussy periods and when they arrived I found it reassuring to know why it was happening and that it would pass."
Social media
Despite complaints that technology can displace instinct, there are positives. Much as I'd like to move expectant couples to a yurt-filled village of encouraging elders, we're now left to weave our own supportive communities around us and for this many turn to Netmums, Mumsnet and their ilk to plug a gap. The forums offer a space to talk where most questions are answered within seconds. Mumsnet's Katie O'Donovan explains: "There is someone on Mumsnet who's going or gone through the same issue, and ready to share their wisdom and support."
• What technology have you found useful - and what would you never use again?
