Purpose: To highlight the opportunities, challenges and strategies for developing digital behaviour change interventions for pregnancy and infancy.  

Rationale: The first 1000 days – the period from conception to baby’s second birthday -  is a critical period in which dietary and activity behaviours can affect short and long-term maternal and infant health outcomes. Expectant and new parents increasingly use pregnancy and parenting apps for information and behaviour tracking. However, the self-directed nature of digital interventions generates a unique set of challenges for their development. This symposium will share the learnings from the development of three app-based interventions targeting different time points within the first 1000 days. 

Objectives: The symposium will (i) showcase three novel app-based behavioural interventions targeting the first 1000 days (ii) draw together the common themes and challenges in developing app-based interventions (iii) discuss effective strategies for overcoming challenges and optimising intervention effectiveness. 

Summary: In talk 1, Mrs Alex Rhodes will talk about the development of Baby Steps to Healthier Habits (BaSHH), an app-based intervention to encourage and support expectant parents to develop healthier dietary and physical activity habits. She will illustrate how using a person-based approach to intervention development helped to re-frame BaSHH and identify user-engagement strategies. 

In talk 2, Miss Kristiane Tommerup will discuss the development of BRIGHT, the first app-based intervention to support healthy growth amongst formula-fed infants through appropriate bottle feeding and complementary feeding behaviours. She will share key learnings regarding i) developing acceptable resources for sensitive subjects such as infant growth and ii) designing features which tailor information to infant appetite and weight development. 

In talk 3, Dr. Annick Bogaerts will talk about the development and testing of the INTER-ACT app, a pregnancy and inter-pregnancy app to prevent excessive weight gain in pregnancy and enhance optimal weight and a healthy lifestyle in the interpregnancy period. She will talk about user-experience from the perspective of healthcare providers as well as end-users and share findings from a multicentric randomised controlled trial.  

Format: The format includes an introduction by the Chair (2 minutes) followed by three oral presentations (15 minutes each). The Discussant will summarise the key learnings from the presentations (3 minutes) and moderate a general discussion between presenters and delegates (20 minutes). 

Interaction:  Delegates will be encouraged to ask questions during the discussion. The Discussant and Chair will also prepare pertinent questions to facilitate interactive exchange with attendees, using Slido for online delegates.