App Review: Parents Pregnancy & Baby Guide

  • Article

As the only pregnant member of my team, the Parents Pregnancy & Baby Guide app for the Windows Store is an excellent choice to review. 

I am actually a subscriber to Parents magazine.  I love their content, and I like keeping up with the latest recommendations on children’s health, discipline, etc.  The app follows a similar style to the magazine.  It’s a great week-by-week guide for parents-to-be and new parents, with easy-to-digest sections like a “tip of the week” and “how big is my baby this week?” along with articles relevant to what you are experiencing at that point in your pregnancy.  The weekly content takes you through pregnancy and the baby’s first year (along with a monthly guide to baby’s second year). 

ParentsScreenshot

You can click on a certain week, and get a variety of content for that week:

Week38Screenshot

You can set your due date in the Settings charm:

DueDateSelector

Then, the AppBar (Windows key + Z) displays a “Jump to My Week” feature from the top and a “Show My Photos” from the bottom.  The Photos feature allows you to annotate the app with weekly pictures throughout your pregnancy and baby’s first year. 

ParentsAppBar

The biggest issue that I’ve found with this app is a bug in the due date calculator and “Jump to My Week” functionality.  I’m currently around 38 weeks and the “Jump to My Week” takes me to 40 weeks.  Looking at various reviews of this app in the Windows Store, it seems that this is a common problem (it is consistently 2 weeks off). 

In general, the app is well-designed with useful content. 

Official description from the app listing page:

“The updated Parents Pregnancy & Baby Guide provides a week-by-week guide for new parents and parents-to-be, from conception to the end of baby’s first year—followed by a monthly guide to baby’s second year. Parents Pregnancy & Baby Guide also incorporates new features of Windows 8.1, such as calendar integration, article and photo sharing, snap view, larger live tiles and larger images in portrait mode.”

Download the app from https://apps.microsoft.com/webpdp/app/71ac7c8a-2b3f-485e-ae61-4a1ba47a531d.