Digitising pregnancy: new ways of monitoring, measuring and

visualising unborn and pregnant bodies

Deborah Lupton, News & Media Research Centre, University of

Canberra@DALupton

Intersections of research interests

pregnancy + motherhood

digital health

big datadigital sociology

digitised children

Apps as sociocultural artefacts

apps

human decision-making

tech affordances

tacit assumptions

digital knowledge economy

Apps as knowledge objects

• they present knowledges• they reproduce knowledges• they create knowledges

Health apps as domestic medical devices

• They monitor bodies’ functions and activities• They convey health and medical information• They diagnose• They can link to healthcare providers or health

insurers

Types of pregnancy apps 1

preconception care

fertility trackers

pregnancy information

pregnancy monitoring

baby names

labour/birth information

labour/birth monitoring

Types of pregnancy apps 2

information for fathers

pregnancy-related games

meditation/affirmation/relaxation in pregnancy/birth

baby products guides

pregnancy journals/scrapbooks

pregnant belly time lapse tool

BabyBump Pregnancy Free

BabyBump Pregnancy Free

Happy Pregnancy Ticker

Bellabeat

Glow + Glow Nurture

Glow Nurture

Glow Nurture

Glow Nurture

Glow Nurture

How popular are they?

• I’m Expecting – Pregnancy App (over 40,000 ratings, 1-5 million downloads on Google Play)

• BabyBump Pregnancy Free (over 30,000 ratings, 1-5 million downloads on Google Play)

Implications 1

• reproducing and creating norms of pregnancy• disciplining and responsibilising the pregnant

body• separation of unborn body from pregnant

body• privileging of unborn needs/rights over

woman’s

Implications 2

• pregnant woman as valuable commodity/target for marketing

• pregnant woman as data-emitting body• personal data used for monitoring by health

insurance companies (US)• joining up of different datasets/data doubles• circulations/repurposing of data• cybernetic nature of data

lively data

emotion

aesthetics

lively capitaldata

subjects/doubles

flow & circulation

multiple uses/repurposing