Four-country study brings digital health coaching into everyday maternity care
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Researchers at University College Dublin (UCD) have published the full study protocol for Bump2Baby & Me+ (B2B&Me+) in the journal PLOS One. The study tests how a digital health coaching program for pregnant women at risk of gestational diabetes performs when it moves out of a clinical trial and into routine hospital care. The publication coincides with the close of the study's recruitment phase, which began in December 2025 across hospitals in Ireland, Spain, Poland and Norway.
Gestational diabetes affects roughly 1 in 7 pregnancies worldwide. It raises risks for both the woman and her baby—women who develop gestational diabetes have a 10-fold increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes compared with the general pregnant population. Globally, rates are rising—earlier this month, the U.K. announced that its rate of gestational diabetes had risen by 60% and now matches Ireland's. This change in rates is driven in part by more women becoming pregnant when they are older and living with obesity or overweight.
B2B&Me+ is designed to determine whether the positive health outcomes achieved during the original Bump2Baby and Me trial will hold up once health coaching is offered to all women at higher risk in busy maternity services. The study will run in four maternity hospitals across Europe: the National Maternity Hospital, Dublin; University Hospital San Cecilio, Granada; Sørlandet Hospital Trust, Kristiansand; and Pomeranian Medical University Hospital, Szczecin.
The study will compare periods of health coaching delivery with periods of usual care at each site. Women who join the program are matched with a health coach through a smartphone app, receive a Bluetooth-enabled weighing scale for self-monitoring and are supported from early pregnancy through nine months after birth.
The study will also compare different ways of inviting at-risk women to the program to determine which would be more successful in enrolling and reaching women in practice. Project findings will feed into a European implementation toolkit intended to give other health services practical, costed guidance on introducing the program.
"We already know this kind of coaching can improve women's health when it's delivered under trial conditions. The harder question—and the one health services actually need answered—is whether it still works once it's part of how a busy maternity unit runs. That's what this study is trying to find out," stated Professor Sharleen O'Reilly, School of Agriculture and Food Science, UCD, and principal investigator, Bump2Baby & Me+.
Publication details
Sharleen L. O'Reilly et al, Bump2Baby & Me+ (B2B&Me+): Protocol for a multi-country, European hybrid type 3 implementation-effectiveness study to reduce the incidence of gestational diabetes mellitus and improve maternal and child health, PLOS One (2026). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0354394.
Journal information: PLoS ONE
Key medical concepts
Diabetes and PregnancyDiabetes Type 2
Clinical categories
Obstetrics & gynecologyPregnancyWomen's healthEndocrinologyHealthy living Provided by University College Dublin Who's behind this story?
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