The best pregnancy apps for Irish parents (and what comes after)

Let's get the awkward bit out of the way first: we don't make a pregnancy app. We make Lullagram, a baby tracker built in Cork, and it only becomes useful once there is an actual baby to track. So this roundup of pregnancy apps has no horse in the race. These are simply the apps Irish parents actually use through the nine months, what each one does well, and then a small confession about where we come in at the end.

A quick note on how we picked them. There is no lab testing or star ratings here, just the names that come up again and again when Irish parents talk to us about what they used while expecting. Every one of them does its job well. The differences are mostly about temperament: whether you want charts, community, freebies or a 3D baby to show your mother-in-law.

The seven worth knowing about

Flo

Flo is the world's most downloaded women's health app, and it earned that the honest way. It tracks periods, ovulation and pregnancy week by week, so if you were already using it before the two lines appeared, it carries you straight through without switching apps. Partner sharing means the other half can follow along too.

Pregnancy+

Pregnancy+ is the pretty one, with beautiful 3D interactive models of the baby's development that you will find yourself showing to relatives. It is also quietly practical: a due date calculator, kick counter, contraction timer, hospital bag checklist and birth planning tools all live inside it.

BabyCenter

BabyCenter is completely free, which is not nothing when the buggy alone costs a fortune. You get a due date countdown, development videos, a kick counter and an enormous community, plus week-by-week emails that arrive just when you were wondering what was happening in there.

What to Expect

Built on the well-known book, and it shows. The interface is clean, the 3D renderings are lovely, and the famous baby-size-as-fruit comparisons are here in all their glory. This week your baby is a butternut squash, apparently. It is week-by-week guidance with a bit of personality.

Emma's Diary

Emma's Diary keeps things simple: a week-by-week tracker, baby name tools and a free welcome pack of goodies when you register. Irish parents have a long tradition of never turning down free stuff, and Emma's Diary respects that tradition.

Peanut

Peanut is less a tracker and more a community. It connects women through fertility, pregnancy and motherhood, a bit like a friendlier corner of the internet built for exactly this stage of life. If what you want is people rather than charts, this is the one.

Natural Cycles

Natural Cycles is really a conception-stage app: temperature-based cycle and fertility tracking that can switch into a pregnancy and postpartum mode once you get there. If you are still at the trying stage, it is arguably the most useful app on this list.

At a glance

Honestly, you can't go far wrong with any of them. Pick the one that suits how your brain works and get on with the more important business of arguing about names.

The gap none of them fills

Here is the thing nobody mentions in the app store descriptions. Every pregnancy app winds down at the birth. The countdown reaches zero, the fruit comparisons run out, and the app that walked you through nine months quietly retires, right at the moment the real logging starts.

Because from day one it is feeds, sleep, nappies, weight, vaccines and PHN visits, and suddenly a midwife is asking how many wet nappies you have had since yesterday while you try to remember what day it is. That after-the-birth job is what Lullagram does, and it was built in Cork for Irish parents specifically: the HSE vaccine schedule, PHN visit reports you can hand over on paper, and both parents sharing one household so whoever did the 4am feed has already logged it.

So the sensible combination is this: pick any pregnancy app above for the nine months, and have Lullagram ready for day one. The pregnancy app gets you to the hospital. We take the handover at the door. There is no rivalry in that arrangement, just two different jobs done by the apps built for them, which is how it should be.

Getting ready before the birth

If you are still expecting and want to feel a bit less blindsided by the first fortnight, we run a free 5-week email course for expecting parents in Ireland at lullagram.ie/prepare. It covers what to pack, what the PHN visits look like, feeding options and what to track in week one. No charge, no catch, unsubscribe anytime. One email a week, written for the Irish system rather than translated from somewhere else, and by the time the bag is packed you will know what a heel prick test is before someone does one on your baby.