Apps can be useful and fun. I’m always asking my patients which apps they like for pregnancy. These are some apps that have been recommended to me:

1. My Days – Period and Ovulation

This free, accurate app has is very helpful for determining the best days of fertility and improving your chances of becoming pregnant more quickly. It tracks periods and uses this information to predict fertility in the upcoming month.

Or… it can be used as a birth control rhythm method by knowing which are the most important fertile days and avoiding intercourse at that time.

2. Perfect OB Wheel

Comprehensive pregnancy wheel contains information about conception, length of pregnancy, due date.   It’s simple, fast, free, and has input flexibility, allowing you to put in the last menstrual period, the conception date, the estimated date of confinement, or the number of weeks and days of gestation based on ultrasound dating.

3. What to Expect Pregnancy

This very popular app includes a due date calculator, week-by-week details on your baby’s development, weekly baby illustrations, updates on your changing body, and countdown to your due date. You get daily tidbits of advice and it also includes helpful information for dads. It’s from the popular book “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” and works on the iPhone, iPad and even the Apple Watch!

4. Contraction Timer by iBirth

The value of a contraction timer is in its simplicity and ease of use. This app makes timing of contractions during labor easy. It has a simple interface, tracks the duration of each contraction, tracks the intervals between contractions, and has a history report for tracking labor progress over time. It’s great for tracking information that your doctor will want to know in assessing if labor has begun.

5. Baby Names!!

For people who would like some help in choosing a name, this app will show you the name’s meaning, pronunciation, gender and origin. It also includes graphs of a name’s popularity over time. For example, the most popular girls names now are Sophia, Isabella, Emma, Olivia, Ava and Emily! You can search by name, gender, origin or initial. It links to Wikipedia and gives you oodles of information of more than 30,000 names. It also has a feature that chooses names that fit with those of the parents.

6. Sex Life – 100+ Positions

This fun guide to sex positions may add some variety to your life!   This app has a contemporary style and can help you try different positions, rate them, keep track of what you have tried, and choose favorites. You can unlock one position free every day and over time build up your amount of visual illustrations.

A score board gives you an overview of your progress.

7. First Aid.                                                                 A useful guide to quick treatment of many different medical emergencies from the American Red Cross, including allergic reaction, burns, poisoning, broken bones, choking, heart attack, heat stroke, seizures, shock, insect bites, unconscious and not breathing.                                                         The app has much useful information that can help you take care of an emergency by yourself or while waiting for help to come. It helps you to be prepared for the unexpected problem.
8. Lactmed.

LactMed is part of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) Toxicology Data Network and is a database of drugs and dietary supplements that may affect breastfeeding. It includes information of the levels of substances in breast milk and how they could adversely affect the nursing infant. This app can help you know which medicines are safe to take when you are breastfeeding your baby.

These apps can be very helpful.  But you have to be careful when getting health related apps because some of them may superficially appear reliable but actually are not based on medicine or science. A recent article “Identification of iPhone and iPad applications for obstetrics and gynecology providers” performed a scientific search for quality ob/gyn apps with results described as “finding a needle in a haystack.”

The good news is that more apps are being written every day. As time goes on, I’ll report back on other apps I have found useful and based on reliable information.