A Pilot Study on the Impact of the BumptUp^® Mobile App on Physical Activity during and after Pregnancy

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,

Congratulations on the completion of this research work, for your time and dedication.

 

My comments are very positive about your research.

 

I congratulate you on the conceptualisation of the problem, the design and method, as well as the discussion of the debate and conclusion. Very elaborate.

I also congratulate you for the in-depth discussion and broad conceptualisation, as well as the detailed method followed. 

 

It is a pilot study that tries to enhance the effectiveness of Bumpup to improve the effectiveness of physical activity in pregnant women. The main strength and what distinguishes it from other articles, in the chosen population and methodology, is that it is novel, unique and provides something different in a population that has not been studied very often, and also presents an intervention using new technology. It justifies why it is being studied and what the need is, placing the reader in context. It is very good and very interesting.

 

Here are some suggestions for improvement, with the aim of improving your citations, downloads, visits, readings by other scientists, etc.

-I suggest that you incorporate as much as you can at the end of the discussion:

a) what are the theoretical implications of this work for scientists reading this work, for theorists in the field or colleagues.

b) what practical implications does this work have for pregnant women?

c) limitations of your study

d) strengths of your work compared to other studies.

e) future lines of research arising from this work that need to be pursued.

I hope that in this way you will get better visibility! Congratulations, I loved your work!

My sincere congratulations for the work.

 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

In this work, to combat maternal morbidity and mortality, interventions designed to increase physical activity levels during and after pregnancy are needed. And the potential efficacy of BumptUp TM for improving physical activity among pregnant and postpartum women are tested. Comments are listed as below,

1. Introduction: The literature review is too long to be introduced in a whole paragraph. It is suggested to divide it into several paragraphs with a reasonable logic. The advantage and shortcoming of these studies should also be summarized.

2. More recent references should be cited.

3. The background of this study is lacked in Abstract and described not enough in Introduction.

4. The main body of the article always describes the specific points, but rarely explains why the phenomenon occurs. Modifications are recommended.

5. As only limited conditions are concerned, so how general do you think the conclusions are?

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

SUSTAINABILITY-1930477 presents information from a pilot study for a physical activity mobile app in women during and after pregnancy. While some parts of this paper were interesting, other areas could be improved. I hope the authors consider my feedback.

MAJOR COMMENTS

·         Figure 1 is useful, but another figure that outlines the experimental design (e.g., schematic) would help to support the Study Procedures text.

·         Data collection: There needs to be far more detail about the use of the accelerometer. What were the sedentary and physical activity cut-points? How was non-wear determined? What was the minimum wear time for a valid day? How many valid days in a week were required? How were accelerometers initialized and subsequently returned? Relevant information in the results related to daily wear, number of valid days, mean+-SD time spent in each cut-point etc. is needed.

·         Please present information related to the reliability of the MARS.

·         Lines 283-290: Not sure if qualitative results are warranted in the Discussion. If you would like to share this information, perhaps consider an appendix.

·         A clear limitations paragraph should be included just before the final paragraph in the Discussion.

MINOR COMMENTS

·         Lines 67-69: Recommend changing to past-tense here and elsewhere as needed and use non-italicized font.

·         Lines 71-72: But how were these women recruited?

·         “*” is not defined in Figure 4. Make sure all data elements stand-alone.

·         Make any changes to the abstract that align with those in the text.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Tinius et al. reported here a pilot study on the applicability of the mobile app BumptUp (patented) for improving physical activity duriang and after pregnancy. The MS is very well-written, with very clear aims, and supportive references.

However, there are some remaining issues that should be answered by the authors before its full acceptance on Sustainability/MDPI:

(1) We understand that the authors are reporting a pilot study, but is there more robust information (articles with higher N) about the efficiency of other mobile app for this purposes? Or even considering different populations, as elderly, diabetic, etc?

(2) More than the demographic aspects depicted in Table 1, could you report here any anthropometric or physiological parameters pre/post the intervention with BumptUp? From my point of view, it is interesting to understand the pre/post variation of the physiological conditions of these pregnant women, and if the mobile app could reflect in any improvement reagrding these indexes. 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have replied the comments properly.

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors have addressed my previous concerns.