HAP3 – Healthy Adaptation to Pregnancy, Postpartum and Parenthood

The HAP3 project ("Healthy Adaptation to Pregnancy, Postpartum and Parenthood") is a European research network funded by the European Union as part of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Doctoral Networks.

What is it about?
The project deals with an important health issue:
Challenges around healthy weight and mental health during pregnancy and childbirth affect many pregnant women, their partners and their children - with long-term consequences for overall family health. These issues are often interrelated and can be passed on from one generation to the next. Despite good research on digital health applications, there is a lack of comprehensive approaches to support both healthy weight and mental health in routine care during pregnancy and postpartum. The HAP3 project aims to close this gap.

Primarily, we want to investigate how well the family app works in practice, i.e. how acceptable and usable it is and how often it is used. Secondarily, we want to record possible effects on mental health, eating behavior, weight, sleep and physical activity of mothers and partners as well as on child development, temperament, parent-child bonding and parenting skills in the first six months after birth. The app supports parents in self-observation and self-management of their health.

The four working groups of HAP3
Working group 1:
This is where large data sets from birth registers and other studies are analyzed. The aim is to gain a better understanding of the factors that influence the health of parents and children during pregnancy and birth.

Working group 2: In this working group, the HAP3 family app is being developed together with families and professionals. A digital overview page (dashboard) is also being created on which professionals will be able to quickly view important information about the participants in the future, for example on their current well-being, health behavior (such as sleep, nutrition, physical activity), changes in weight and mental health. This allows them to offer support in a targeted manner and monitor the family's progress.

• The HAP3 Family App supports expectant parents in monitoring and managing their own health. The app offers science-based modules on topics such as pregnancy and postnatal care, mental health, physical activity, sleep, nutrition, healthy weight, lifestyle and parenting. In addition, participants receive personal video or telephone advice from the research team.

• The dashboard is a clear platform that helps the research team to track the individual progress of participating families, bundle relevant information and provide in a targeted manner personalized support via video or phone calls and messages.

Working group 3: This working group will examine whether the family app, the dashboard and the study processes work well in everyday life. We are investigating this:

• Main objectives (feasibility): The acceptance and usability of the family app, the engagement of participants (how frequently and intensively the app is used), the recruitment and retention rate in the study, adherence to the study protocol and the completeness of the data collected will be investigated.

• Further objectives: Possible effects on mental health (e.g. mood, anxiety, depression), eating behavior, weight, sleep and physical activity of mothers and partners are recorded. In addition, child development, child temperament, parent-child bonding and parenting skills in the first six months after birth will be examined.

Working group 4: Based on the results from working groups 1-3, strategies will be developed and tested as to how the HAP3 family app and the overview page can be permanently integrated into normal care around pregnancy and birth (e.g. in clinics, practices and midwifery work).

The European HAP3 network
A total of eleven doctoral students from different countries are being trained as experts in innovative childbirth care.

Participating universities:

• KU Leuven (Belgium)
• Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (Netherlands)
• TUD Dresden University of Technology (Germany)
• Trinity College Dublin (Ireland)
• Aarhus University (Denmark)

Other associated partners are also involved, including non-academic partners from healthcare, technology and politics.

Training and international cooperation
The HAP3 network is training a total of eleven doctoral students from different countries to become experts in innovative care around childbirth. Each doctoral student completes a joint PhD at two European universities and receives a joint doctoral degree from both institutions at the end.

The training includes:

• Structured research in the fields of public mental health (Public Mental Health), digital health (Digital Health) and prevention research
• International research stays in research institutions, health care facilities and political institutions
• A training program with summer schools, workshops and conferences

The project brings together leading universities, clinics, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), technology partners and political stakeholders from several European countries. This diversity creates a unique environment for the development of innovative solutions for the care of families during pregnancy and childbirth.

Further information
Updates on the project and the researchers involved are available at
🔗 https://hap3.eu/
🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/company/hap3-project/people/

Study management:
Prof. Dr. habil. Susan Garthus-Niegel

Study team:

VU Amsterdam (Netherlands)
Amato, Donata Maria - d.m.amato@vu.nl
Dehard, Zoé (Z.) - z.dehard@vu.nl
Raghunathan, Meera - m.raghunathan@vu.nl
Wilhelm, Merle - m.l.wilhelm@vu.nl

Trinity College Dublin (Ireland)
Handayani, Nur Hidayati - handayan@tcd.ie
Singh, Shivangi - singhs15@tcd.ie

KU Leuven (Belgium)
Baron, Rebecca Audrey - rebeccaaudrey.baron@kuleuven.be
Duizer, Lisanne - lisanne.duizer@kuleuven.be
Yang, Xiaowei - xiaowei.yang@kuleuven.be

TU Dresden (Germany)
Aydin, Ayla - ayla.aydin@tu-dresden.de