Dutch app helps women throughout the world to give birth.

The Doula app is the number one labor coach, helping women with their breathing and the whole childbirth experience. Initially the app was launched in the Netherlands at the beginning of 2014, for iPhone users. Besides helping expectant moms to get through their contractions and beyond, the Doula app includes a playlist of soothing music, a contraction timer with a graph and a breathing assistance button. And it gets even better: the new multilingual app is now available on Android and features five extra languages: English, Spanish, Moroccan, Turkish and German.

The Doula labor coach
The Doula app guides women and their partners through the initial hours of childbirth, calmly and lovingly.At this early stage, heavily pregnant women are often left alone by midwives because ‘the baby isn’t on its way yet’. Even in hospitals, women often find themselves coping with their contractions alone, without any form of professional guidance, for hours on end. In situations like this, many users of the app have felt reassured and more relaxed with the voice of an experienced midwife by their side.

Android expansion
The app became popular in the Netherlands very quickly after its launch in 2014. Professionals are very enthusiastic too: many midwives, gynecologists and antenatal course leaders recommend the Doula labor coach app. It soon became clear that the Dutch iPhone version of the app would not be enough to cover the huge demand from expectant moms in the long term. Users called for other languages to be added too. Today, the updated version is available on Android as well and features five new languages: English, German, Spanish, Turkish and Moroccan. The result is a fully optimized labor coach that helps women throughout the world give birth to their children.

International ambitions
Five extra native speakers, who are all midwives or doulas, have provided their voices for their specific languages. The voice coaching that people want varies from one country to another and is very culture and language-specific. Because of this, all of the voice coaching provided by the app has been written and recorded separately for each language. As a result, more than half of all women worldwide can now give birth while lovingly being spoken to via a smartphone. That’s not all: discussions are under way with partners again and the aim now is to add even more languages to the app in the future. These discussions are focusing on expanding the app to cover Russia and Asia.

Partnership

Founder MarijkeSibie covered the costs of the iPhone version of the app herself, but couldn’t afford the extra investment necessary for the Android version. This is when the development company DTT Multimedia, in the person of Jeffrey van Dijk (director and owner), decided to lend a helping hand. Jeffrey: “The Doula app is a super likeable project. I love the idea that it has the potential to offer billions of women worldwide the services of a doula at their bedsides.”

The Doula app is free and is now available for both Apple and Android devices. The app was developed by DTT Multimedia, which has previously worked on apps for clients like ING Bank, FOX Sports, Boston Consultancy Group, KPMG and the Dutch government too.