Healthy preconception nutrition and lifestyle using personalized mobile health coaching is associated with enhanced pregnancy chance

• Published in: Reproductive biomedicine online 2017-10, Vol.35 (4), p.453-460
• Main Authors: van Dijk, Matthijs R., Koster, Maria P.H., Willemsen, Sten P., Huijgen, Nicole A., Laven, Joop S.E., Steegers-Theunissen, Régine P.M.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; Behaviours; Body Mass Index; Diet; eHealth; Female; Fertility; Humans; Life Style; Male; Personalized care; Personalized medicine; Preconception Care; Pregnancy; Pregnancy Rate; Telemedicine; Young Adult
• ISSN: 1472-6483; 1472-6491
• DOI: 10.1016/j.rbmo.2017.06.014

Periconceptional nutrition and lifestyle are essential in pathogenesis and prevention of most reproductive failures, pregnancy outcome and future health. We aimed to investigate whether personalized mobile health (mHealth) coaching empowers couples contemplating pregnancy to increase healthy behaviour and chances of pregnancy. A survey was conducted among 1053 women and 332 male partners who received individual coaching using the mHealth programme ‘Smarter Pregnancy’ to change poor nutrition and lifestyle for 26 weeks, depending on pregnancy state and gender. Poor behaviours were translated into a total risk score (TRS) and Poisson regression analysis was performed to estimate associations with the chance of pregnancy adjusted for fertility status, age and baseline body mass index expressed as adjusted hazard ratio (aHR) and 95% confidence interval (95% CI). A lower (a)HR suggests a higher chance of achieving pregnancy. A higher TRS was significantly associated with a lower chance of pregnancy in all women (aHR 0.79, 95% CI 0.72–0.85) and (a)HR was lowest in women whose male partner participated (aHR 0.75, 95% CI 0.61–0.91). This survey shows that empowerment of couples in changing poor nutrition and lifestyle using personalized mHealth coaching is associated with an enhanced pregnancy chance in both infertile and fertile couples.