Background: Previous studies have investigated the various effects of parenting on infant developmental outcomes. In particular, parental stress and social support have been found to significantly affect the growth of the newborn. Although many parents today use mobile apps to obtain more support in parenting and perinatal care, few studies have examined how these apps could affect infant development. Objective: This study aimed to examine the effectiveness of the Supportive Parenting App (SPA) in improving infant developmental outcomes during the perinatal period. Methods: This study adopted a 2-group parallel prospective longitudinal design and recruited 200 infants and their parents (N=400 mothers and fathers). The parents were recruited at 24 weeks of gestation for a randomized controlled trial conducted from February 2020 to July 2022. They were randomly allocated to either the intervention or control group. The infant outcome measures included cognition, language, motor skills, and social-emotional development. Data were collected from the infants when they were aged 2, 4, 6, 9, and 12 months. Linear and modified Poisson regressions were used to analyze the data to examine between- and within-group changes. Results: At 9 and 12 months post partum, the infants in the intervention group were found to have better communication and language skills than those in the control group. An analysis of motor development revealed that a larger proportion of the infants in the control group fell under the at-risk category, where they scored approximately 2 SDs below the normative scores. The control group infants scored higher on the problem solving domain at 6 months post partum. However, at 12 months postpartum, the infants in the intervention group performed better on cognitive tasks than those in the control group. Despite not being statistically significant, the intervention group infants were found to have consistently scored better on the social components of the questionnaires than the control group infants. Conclusions: Overall, the infants whose parents had received the SPA intervention tended to fare better in most developmental outcome measures than those whose parents had received standard care only. The findings of this study suggest that the SPA intervention exerted positive effects on the communication, cognition, motor, and socioemotional development of the infants. Further research is needed to improve the content and support provided by the intervention to maximize the benefits gained by infants and their parents. Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04706442; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04706442

中文翻译：

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评估支持性育儿应用程序对婴儿发育结果的影响：纵向研究

背景：之前的研究调查了养育方式对婴儿发育结果的各种影响。特别是，已发现父母压力和社会支持会显着影响新生儿的成长。尽管如今许多父母使用移动应用程序来获得更多育儿和围产期护理方面的支持，但很少有研究探讨这些应用程序如何影响婴儿发育。目的：本研究旨在检验支持性育儿应用程序 (SPA) 在改善围产期婴儿发育结果方面的有效性。方法：本研究采用 2 组平行前瞻性纵向设计，招募了 200 名婴儿及其父母（N=400 名母亲和父亲）。父母在妊娠 24 周时被招募参加 2020 年 2 月至 2022 年 7 月进行的随机对照试验。他们被随机分配到干预组或对照组。婴儿结果测量包括认知、语言、运动技能和社交情感发展。数据是从婴儿 2、4、6、9 和 12 个月大时收集的。线性和修正泊松回归用于分析数据以检查组间和组内变化。结果：在产后 9 个月和 12 个月时，发现干预组的婴儿比对照组的婴儿具有更好的沟通和语言技能。对运动发育的分析显示，对照组中较大比例的婴儿属于高危类别，他们的得分比正常分数低约 2 个标准差。对照组婴儿在产后 6 个月时在问题解决领域得分更高。然而，在产后 12 个月时，干预组的婴儿在认知任务上的表现优于对照组。尽管没有统计学意义，但发现干预组婴儿在问卷的社会成分上的得分始终高于对照组婴儿。结论：总体而言，父母接受 SPA 干预的婴儿在大多数发育结果指标中往往比父母仅接受标准护理的婴儿表现更好。这项研究的结果表明，SPA 干预对婴儿的沟通、认知、运动和社会情感发展产生了积极影响。需要进一步的研究来改进干预措施提供的内容和支持，以最大限度地提高婴儿及其父母的获益。试验注册： ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04706442；https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04706442