(575) Are women enrolled in a postpartum monitoring app more likely to receive lactation care postpartum?

Lactation consultation has been shown to improve both breastfeeding duration and experience. Data is limited on how postpartum monitoring apps affect lactation consult use. MOMitor™ is a post-partum app that monitors both the mental and physical health of participants.  We examined lactation consultation utilization among women using the MOMitor™ app compared to those not using the app within one year postpartum.

Study Design:

This cross-sectional, descriptive analysis retrospectively reviewed electronic health records from 2021–2023 to observe postpartum lactation visit frequency between 919 MOMitor™ app users and 627 non-users. Patients enrolled in the app received weekly questions asking if they were having any breastfeeding complications, if they would like to be contacted by a nurse to discuss concerns, and whether they would like to be referred for lactation care. Bivariate analysis with chi-squared testing was used to assess differences in healthcare utilization.

Results:

A total of 1546 charts were reviewed. 919 charts were MOMitor™ participants, and 627 were controls. There were 260 MOMitor™ patients with at least one lactation visit (28.29%) and 54 controls with at least one lactation visit (8.61%).  A statistically significantly greater proportion of MOMitor participants, as compared with controls, received lactation consultant care in the postpartum period (p< 0.001). 

Conclusion:

Participation in a post-partum monitoring app significantly increases the use of lactation consultation care in the post-partum period. This is likely due to the questionnaires and access to referrals through the MOMitor™ app. Further studies could investigate whether breastfeeding durations were influenced by increased lactation support.