Introduction
Overview of the Problem
When a child is born, the mother doesn't know instinctively how to take care of her infant. Likewise, the mother doesn’t know how to change her life differently upon conception in order to have a healthy pregnancy. Pregnancy is a time for adaptation; the mother to be must change how and what she eats as well as what activities she does and how often she does them. For the mother to be, it can become a guessing game everyday. Is she eating right? Does she need more exercise? Is her activity too strenuous? What foods should she stay away from? These are questions that can be answered by several different sources of varying reliability. The goal of the Prenatal Nutritionist is to provide answers to all of these questions in one interface on a portable device.
One important part of maintaining a healthy pregnancy is diet. There are foods such as fish, because of its mercury content, that should not be eaten by pregnant women. There are important minerals and vitamins, such as iron or sodium, that need to be maintained at certain higher levels but should not be taken in excess. The thought that unknowingly ingesting something or maintaining insufficient amounts of a needed nutrient could harm the fetus can make everyday meal choices stressful. To help relieve such stress the Prenatal Nutritionist provides meal options for breakfast, lunch, snacks, and dinner with the appropriate balance of vitamins and minerals while avoiding foods that may endanger the developing fetus.
It is difficult for anyone to keep track of their intake of vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, proteins, fats, and etcetera. The Prenatal Nutritionist is designed to provide a way for pregnant women to keep track of their nutritional and physical needs. A database is formed from the records of food consumed by the user. The meals suggested are based upon the current nutritional needs. The Prenatal Nutritionist develops suggestions from the working dynamic database of food intake for that day along with the individuals, stage in the pregnancy, age, body type, and current health status. In this way a pregnant woman can use the Prenatal Nutritionist for suggestions for her next meal. Because of its portability she could consult the Prenatal Nutritionist whether cooking from home or ordering from a menu and still be sure that she is eating properly for her condition.
In the same context proper exercise is necessary for a healthy pregnancy. Too strenuous of activities can harm the developing fetus, and so can inactivity. Women used to doing extensive and intense training, such as professional or amateur athletes, must decrease the intensity of their workout over the course of the pregnancy to avoid harming the fetus. Likewise, for women who normally do not exercise starting to workout while pregnant, besides extremely light activity such as walking, can have detrimental effects. The question that arises is how much exercise does a pregnant woman need? The answer varies from person to person. Women who are professional athletes may be forced to slow the pace a little but by how much so as not to effect their training or the baby? What can a woman who only exercises sporadically do? These answers can be difficult to come by and once presented with an answer the necessary change can be hard to maintain.
It is difficult for a woman going through so many changes and adaptations to stick to a new exercise plan. Slipping back into old habits, whether working out too much or too little, can be tempting. The Prenatal Nutritionist provides different exercise plans made for the individual woman, based upon her physical fitness before she conceived. The plans are created to keep the woman in shape and healthy while not overexerting her. To help her maintain the plan the Prenatal Nutritionist allows the woman to record her workout completed. An exercise database is created from which subsequent workouts are developed and which allows the woman to witness her progress in the form of charts and graphs. The key is to maintain the provided exercise routine. The Prenatal Nutritionist is mobile and allows the mother to keep up with her exercise plan anywhere she may go whether it is the gym or vacation.
Pregnancy is a miracle of life. But it can be a very difficult and stressful time for the mother. In order to have a healthy pregnancy she must maintain a healthy diet, exercise regularly and try to prevent stress. The Prenatal Nutritionist is designed with the intention to take the mystery and the stress out of choosing and maintaining a healthy lifestyle while pregnant. This interface provides another aid to the pregnant woman besides keeping track of and recommending her nutrient intake and exercise habits. It also allows for the pregnant woman to keep her doctor informed of her health status. The Prenatal Nutritionist provides, with each graph and chart saved as a file, the choice of sending the information to her doctor. This is a way the doctor can remain updated with the patient’s health if necessary. Additionally, people besides the pregnant woman may use this interface for the pregnant woman. A spouse, family member, or friend may at times use the Prenatal Nutritionist when planning a meal for the family or to make sure that the woman who is pregnant is not over exercising. The Prenatal Nutritionist is a first attempt to place the appropriate diet and exercise plan for each individual pregnant woman at her fingertips and into her purse.
Discussion of Previous Work
We found many journal articles, websites and books that contained information regarding a healthy diet and lifestyle for pregnant women. The problem is not with the availability of data to help a woman choose a healthy diet and exercise routine. The problem lies in the fact that these articles and other sources that contain important information are scattered and do not provide personalized nutritional and exercise information. Our idea was to apply the knowledge of maintaining a healthy pregnancy by diet and exercise in the works we found and personalize it. We did this by accounting for individual characteristics such as age, weight, etcetera and then tracking food intake and exercise habits to ultimately provide the user with the information they needed at that specific moment to maintain a healthy pregnancy. There were a couple of sources that we found that echoed our idea of placing all the information a pregnant woman might need in one place and one that even personalized such information. The ones that are discussed below are the few that resembled the idea and spirit behind the development of the Prenatal Nutritionist.
BabyFit.com
BabyFit.com is an interactive website. It contains articles on the many facets of pregnancy. There is a message board for prospective mothers to interact and links to other sites that focus on pregnancy. For members, BabyFit provides a personalized exercise and nutritional plans which includes meal plans, shopping lists recipes, a nutrient tracker, a daily fitness plan, and exercise demonstrations. The Prenatal Nutritionist has all of these features and more. We felt that the exercise program was a bit weak and not tuned specifically to the needs of the woman based on her exercise history. The idea behind the Prenatal Nutritionist is that it is portable. You can take it with you to a restaurant and use it to help you choose your meal or on vacation in order to maintain your workout routine. A project like BabyFit can only be consulted when at a computer with an internet connection is available. The advantage to the Prenatal Nutritionist is its portability, this encourages a constant use of its features because it never has to leave the owners side.
BabyFit.com also allows members to consult with experts and maintain weekly reports. These reports could easily be mailed to a personal doctor. But the idea behind the Prenatal Nutritionist is to keep you directly in contact with your doctor. There is the option for the doctor to send a workout plan directly to the Prenatal Nutritionist and any of the data gathered can be sent directly from the Prenatal Nutritionist to the personal doctor with just a click of a button.
Kidshealth.org
Kidshealth.org was broader website than BabyFit.com. It discussed many different stages of child rearing but we obviously focused on the prenatal section of the website. It contained articles about exercising during pregnancy. They ranged from what exercises to do, how to do them, and why they were good for the mother and fetus. This idea of providing the pregnant woman with appropriate exercise options in one location is a big underlying idea behind the exercise portion of the Prenatal Nutritionist. Our goal was also to make it interactive. We provided the workout information like Kidshealth.org but we allowed for the user to track her progress along with the choice to send the gathered data out to her doctor or even get the doctor to upload a new exercise program to the Prenatal Nutritionist.
Kidshealth.org provides food allergy advice to its users. This is a very important part to suggesting meals for a healthy pregnancy. Foods that cause allergic reactions must be avoided as well as foods that will not harm the mother but could harm the fetus such as fish or alcohol. Kidshealth.org provides such information concentrated in one place. That is the Prenatal Nutritionists idea behind the check food risk option. This way a prospective mother can be sure what she is eating is safe. Because the Prenatal Nutritionist is portable so wherever the mother may go she can always find out if what she is about to eat could harm her or the child she is carrying.
University Of Chicago’s Pregnancy Nutrition Guide
This project contains a nutritional guide specifically for pregnant women. It outlines the nutrient need change during the stages of pregnancy. A modified food pyramid is provided and various charts of appropriate wait gain and vitamin and mineral need changes during the course of the pregnancy. This is much like our interactive meal suggestions. As the pregnancy progresses instead of providing to the user the appropriate changes in her diet that she needs to make, the Prenatal Nutritionist makes them for her. The Prenatal Nutritionist tracks the nutrient intake and adjusts its meal suggestions according to the point in the pregnancy.
Each stage of the pregnancy is very different from beginning to end. A mother to be who wants to know how her diet must change to remain healthy through each term would find this website extremely helpful. The idea behind the Prenatal Nutritionist is to provide the pregnant woman with a diet that changes as she changes. Each pregnancy is a little different and it can be comforting for a woman to know that her nutrient intake is being monitored and maintained for her.
Discussed References