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Can Bedside Consent Apps Improve Informed Consent During Childbirth?

By Alexa Richardson

Informed consent in childbirth is under fire by advocates, who stress that there is a widespread absence of meaningful informed consent during birth. While informed consent in medical settings always poses challenges, informed consent in childbirth raises particular concerns. Labor unfolds in real-time, and people are heavily reliant on their provider for information during birth. Providers may not adequately seek informed consent out of a belief that they should make decisions in the fetal interest, rather than the parent. Furthermore, laboring people make choices that are more than medical: birth is a value-laden process entwined with beliefs about parenting, life-meaning, and fetal interests.  A new solution is on the table that could help improve the process of informed consent in childbirth: guided decision-making apps. This year, multiple mobile apps are in the works that would assist laboring people and clinicians in real-time decision-making during labor and birth.

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Meditation? There’s an (almost FDA-approved) app for that

Headspace is paving the way for the first FDA-approved prescription meditation app.

Developers behind the mindfulness smartphone app, which has over 30 million users, are creating a new product under Headspace Health that will begin clinical trials this summer, in hopes of clearing FDA approval by 2020. The team is investigating how the app can help treat 12 mental and physical conditions.

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