Baby Bump Midwife
Midwife finder and corresponding APP
Investigation begins here
Problem
Get the support you need with a midwife. A midwife is someone who helps a pregnant person during their pregnancy, through labor and delivery, and after pregnancy. They are there throughout the labor and delivery to support the pregnant person and their partner and/or family. They provide guidance to not only the pregnant person, but also guidance, educational information, and counsel to the partner/ support group. Having this support throughout the pregnancy and after can help ease some of the stressors induced by a pregnancy. Forming a trusting relationship with the provider who will be assisting in delivering the baby can help make the pregnant person feel safe. The challenge is, trying to find a midwife can be difficult and expensive.
Most midwives operate through private businesses. Some businesses have multiple midwives, and some are a single provider. Finding out information can be difficult. learning what services are offered, what insurance they accept, or what their costs are, their years and types of experience, their techniques, specialties, whether they assist with in-home, in-hospital, or birthing center deliveries, what hospital they work with, what their ability is available, etc., can be almost impossible without calling and talking to each person or center directly.
Findings
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The majority of participants were in their 20’s, 30’s, and 40’s. 78.9% of the respondents had one or more children. This helped us feel confident that the majority of the survey respondents could relate to the questions included in the survey.
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The respondents expressed a desire t to learn more about each midwife, such as: years of experience, licensing info, birthing philosophy, and other specifics. There was also a desire to have health care providers endorsing and verifying the information, and, also for the app to provide accurate information regarding insurance coverage. There was a consensus that the motivation to get a midwife was because the respondents believed it was more natural, and that midwives are more helpful in not only labor and delivery, but in prenatal and postnatal care.
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There were a few findings that were unexpected in the survey. For example, approximately half of respondents reported that their top preference was to work with a midwife provider, however, only ¼ of them utilized a midwife provider. Only 10% of these respondents worked with a midwife provider for the delivery of their second child.
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When looking for a midwife, 60% of respondents checked for pricing, however, 57.9% didn’t look for providers or services with a sliding scale. This raised the question of whether they knew to look for sliding scale pricing.
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Respondents utilized several channels to research and identify a midwife, however, an equal number of
respondents used the hospital as a search resource vs the Internet. Having hospitals and/or medical professionals endorse the website/app would be a strong selling point and help convince users to utilize the app. Practically all of the respondents were interested in communicating with a midwife through an app. This would mean that having a website would be beneficial, but having an app to communicate with providers, connected to the website, would also be useful.
Result
In this app, one can find a midwife in their area. The list of midwives would pop up, allowing the user to scroll through. Being able to filter for price ranges (as well as for set prices vs sliding scale), insurance, in-home/ hospital/birthing center, and what hospital they work with, will make searching for the right midwife much easier. Each profile will contain a brief description of the midwife and their experience, pricing, insurance, hospital/in-home, what hospital they work with, what services they offer, and their contact info. Users can also just browse to see all midwives in a particular area or zip code as necessary
Software: Figma, Illustrator, Indesign
Deliverables: Answering a Message (prototype) New User (prototype)