Count the Kicks App

Project Description

Healthy Birth Day, the proven stillbirth organization in the United States based in Des Moines, was founded 15 years ago by five local mothers who all had experienced the loss of their daughters. Healthy Birth Day's mission is to improve birth outcomes through programming, advocacy and research. Health Equity is at the center of our work, with a goal to reduce the racial disparities that exist. We help save babies through our evidence-based Count the Kicks stillbirth prevention program, which educates expectant parents on the importance of tracking their babies' movements in the third trimester of pregnancy and to speak up if they notice a change. So far the organization has received approximately 150 baby save stories, 50 of which are from Iowa families.

Healthy Birth Day is in need of funding for our Count the Kicks app, the hallmark tool that we use to save lives. We are currently beginning an exciting project to infuse AI into our app. This will allow us to create curated content based on a mother's question that she asks and will link her with responses from our research and evidence-based content. It will also connect the mom with community boards to connect her with others on a similar pregnancy journey. For the first time, Healthy Birth Day, Inc. will research and test whether AI technology can be leveraged to alert expectant parents when their baby’s movement patterns have strayed from normal. A change in a baby’s movement patterns in the third trimester is often an early red flag in pregnancy that something might be going wrong. HBD will study, through its Count the Kicks app, whether AI can accurately detect and warn specific moms when something is off.