Currently submitted to: JMIR Pediatrics and Parenting
Date Submitted: Feb 26, 2025
Open Peer Review Period: Mar 25, 2025 - May 20, 2025
(currently open for review and needs more reviewers - can you help?)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
A Human-Centered Baby Massage Mobile Application to Enhance Growth and Development in Infants with Low Birth Weight: A Study in Indonesia
ABSTRACT
Background:
Low birth weight (LBW) is linked to higher risks of neonatal morbidity, developmental delays, and long-term health issues. Although baby massage has been proven to enhance growth and neuro-developmental outcomes in LBW infants, access to suitable training and compliance with massage regimes continue to be challenges, especially in low-resource settings. Mobile health (mHealth) interventions represent a novel solution for addressing these challenges through the provision of scalable and standardized education in Baby Massage.
Objective:
This study aimed to design and test a human-centered baby massage mobile application (app) to promote the growth and development of LBW infants in Indonesia.
Methods:
We used a human-centered iterative design framework to create the mobile application. System Usability Scale (SUS) was used to assess the usability of the application among 42 caregivers of LBW infants. Feedback was collected qualitatively through semi-structured interviews, and thematic analysis was applied to understand user experience. A pilot study assessed the impact of the application on caregiver knowledge, confidence, adherence to baby massage practices, and infant growth outcomes. Weight pre- and post-intervention assessments were compared using paired t-tests.
Results:
The mobile application was found to have high usability, evidenced by an average SUS score of 78.6 (SD = 8.2). The majority of participants (85%) rated the app as "excellent" or "good" with respect to ease of use and navigation. Qualitative feedback emphasized its effectiveness at increasing caregiver confidence and its cultural relevance. Statistical analyses from the pilot study showed significant gains in caregiver knowledge (+20.5 points, p < 0.01), confidence (+21.6 points, p < 0.01), and adherence to baby massage practices (+20.3 points, p < 0.05). Statistically significant weight (+330 grams, p < 0.01) and head circumference (+1.3 cm, p < 0.01) improvement was observed in infants in the intervention group.
Conclusions:
The human-centered baby massage mobile application showed promising evidence of feasibility and effectiveness in increasing knowledge, confidence, and adherence to baby massage practices by caregivers. The application features a culturally tailored and user-friendly design, which makes it accessible, especially in low-resource settings. This was a small-scale study and future work should involve scaling the intervention as well as evaluating the long-term effects on infant health outcomes.
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Copyright
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