Shristi Rawal, associate professor in the Department of Clinical and Preventive Nutrition Sciences, has received a two-year, $406,531 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the first phase of a five-year project grant totaling $1.26 million.

Shristi Rawal

The project will develop and test a gamified mobile app designed to help pregnant women in Nepal manage healthy gestational weight gain. Excessive weight gain during pregnancy can lead to health problems for both mothers and babies, and this issue is growing in low- and middle-income countries.

If successful, the approach could also be adapted for use in low-resource areas of the United States, including rural communities and maternity care deserts where access to maternal health services is limited, according to Rawal.

The new app will be a game-based tool that encourages healthy eating and physical activity for women who enter pregnancy overweight or with obesity. It is adapted from an earlier Rutgers-developed app that successfully helped Nepalese women manage gestational diabetes.

Over the next two years, the team will work closely with Nepalese women and local health providers to design, test, and refine the app to ensure it is engaging, culturally relevant, and easy to use. The final version will then be evaluated in a randomized, controlled trial involving 360 pregnant women, comparing standard prenatal care with and without the app.

Researchers hope the app will help reduce excessive weight gain during pregnancy and support healthier habits after childbirth, ultimately improving maternal and child health in communities with limited resources.