What do you think?

[Askthemidwife]

If there was an app you could have on your phone where you could write a question to a midwife and have a response really quickly would you use it if it cost £1 per message?

I'm creating an app for women to use so they can have a midwife on hand to speak to as and when they need by sending messages, but I need to know if there is a market for this kind of thing? ????

Any hints and tips would be much appreciated ????

I wouldn't - because I could phone my maternity unit or my own midwife for free, and they had access to my records.

I think anything like this would have to be very general - the midwife wouldn't be able to answer personal questions without access to medical notes and the specific circumstances of the woman. If they provided advice they would have to be medico legally responsible for it which IMO is a big risk when you don't know the patient and giving advice from a distance. I guess things like "my baby isn't moving as much" would be answered with "call your maternity unit" which might be ok if people were willing to pay for that. Also how quickly would the texts be answered? If in the instance of something potentially serious happening I wouldn't like to think people were waiting for an answer rather than getting proper help.
HTH

I think it's a really good idea.
My hospital have a part of their website where they do this, you sign up using your patient number so only patients can sign up, you have a little page with your due date on and it tells you how many weeks you are and there's an 'ask a midwife' button where you can ask any question you want and a midwife at the hospital gets back to you (usually within 24 hours).
I've found it to be really helpful and it has Lots of useful information on different things so sometimes questions are answered already. I often get emails every now and then with little updates.

It's called Maternity Assist. I think if you google it it should take you to the Liverpool women's hospital website with some information on.
Might be good to get some ideas from this as it sounds pretty similar to what you're suggesting! It would be good if everyone could have access to something similar!

Personally I was able to text my midwife throughout my pregnancy and she was great at texting back. So not something I would have needed :)

I'm with PenguinPoser. Also a £1 a message is cheeky.

Also who would be providing insurance for the midwife for their advice? Sorry I don't mean to be negative about the idea as it's not a bad idea - just might be more complicated in reality.

I agree with penguin and the £1 message sorry I thought the app itself would be £1.

im just trying to figure out if there would be a market for it so all your feedback is great thank you :)

The idea is just to be able to have this app on your phone so if you have a question that you need answering straight away you can text and get a fast response. It's for ease really I guess, maybe for people who want to ask a lot of questions but don't want to ring the maternity unit all the time, want to get responses straight away etc. as a midwife myself I see midwives stretched so much and unable to get back to their clients as much as they would like to and I thought something like this might take the pressure off a bit and help women all over the UK feel like they had a professional they could talk to if and when they needed it. I'd be interested to hear if it was something you would like to use, how much you would pay per message, or if it should be a subscription type deal? Thank you for your answers so far :)

Ah ok seeing as you're a midwife I guess you will know how to arrange professional indemnity insurance etc as appropriate. I still think it's a risk. I'm not a midwife but am a HCP and wouldn't do this myself but that's just my personal opinion. I think you could maybe offer that service to women on your own caseload - but then I think there might be an issue charging for it if you were otherwise providing them with NHS care. Anyway will see what other people think and hope you get some useful info!

I think it's risky without midwife having access to your notes and your own history so it's not something I would use. I also have a 24 hour number to my maternity assessment department so if it was something that couldn't wait for my routine midwife appointment then I would phone them or my gp.

I wouldn't use it.

Genuine question and hope I don't offend by asking this, but if you use a service like this where you get advice from non professionals regarding your pregnancy, why would you not use a service where you can ask the same questions and get professional advice? Thanks :)

It's a nice idea but I think I'd either want to speak with my own midwife for specific info, or otherwise I'd probably just google if it was more general. I can't imagine a query where i'd prefer to use this type of service. There are some great email week by week subscriptions and apps that I've found to use through my pregnancy which have kept me reasonably well informed!

Might be good for people in countries with less midwife support through pregnancy?

I don't like the idea of having to pay £1 for advice I could get for free from my midwife!

Thank you all so much for your comments. Every opinion helps :)