This new app for new moms is a game-changer

Motherhood begins the second that test comes back positive. And so does motherhood anxiety. It’s wild how two little lines on a thin strip of paper are powerful enough to instantly catapult a woman into a realm of new questions, uncertainties, hopes, and fears — a beautiful and grueling realm from which she will never completely return.

As much as birth is a rite of passage, so is the angst that awakens the moment a woman discovers there is precious life growing inside her and lasts as long as her heart continues to beat.

Many mothers feel more lost than ever.

But as much as motherhood is one of the most trodden paths in human existence, as much as a “mother’s intuition” is a very real and powerful thing, mothers need guidance.

This is perhaps most true at the dawn of their journey — from pregnancy through birth and into that first postpartum year.

For most of human history, women learned about pregnancy, birth, and caring for newborns from other women in their village. It was beautiful for its simplicity, yet often treacherous due to limited medical knowledge. Today, the terrain is far safer — death in childbirth is rare thanks to modern medical interventions — yet many mothers feel more lost than ever.

We still seek anecdotal wisdom from other women, but we’re drinking through a fire hose because most of that information (much of which may be wrong) comes from Instagram, TikTok, and the dumpster fire of opinions that is Reddit. Add to that the often conflicting advice we receive from our ob-gyns, doulas, and midwives, and the result is many women feeling paralyzed, unable to advocate for themselves, and immensely underprepared for the journey that awaits them.

Hope for the modern mother

Thankfully, hope has come, and its name is “I Am Motherhood.”

Bella McIntire is the creator of this all-encompassing resource for mothers in the stages of all three trimesters, labor and delivery, and the postpartum period.

“I Am Motherhood” is a free downloadable app that not only guides mothers through an ocean of information but equips them with the practical tools they need for a successful journey through pregnancy, birth, and the subsequent year.

Screenshots by Hailee Boyd/I Am Motherhood

A nurse and mother’s mission

As a labor and delivery and postpartum nurse and the mother of two young children, Bella is a wealth of knowledge and experience. “I Am Motherhood” is her endeavor to share the resources she has spent years accumulating with a generation of women who feel they are blindly navigating the early stages of the most important role they will ever inhabit.

After years of advising friends and watching patients enter the birth process confused and underprepared, Bella decided to meet this growing need herself.

“What really was the impetus for ‘I Am Motherhood’ was I decided to quit my job after my daughter was born in 2024, and as soon as I quit, I realized how much I missed it, and so I started just jotting down all the advice I had given friends and patients,” she told me.

What began as a humble Google document developed into six — yes, six! — books, all of which are available for purchase and download on the “I Am Motherhood” app. Each book covers a different part of the motherhood journey: the first trimester, second trimester, third trimester, labor and delivery, the first month of postpartum, and the remaining 11 months of the postpartum year. These books are for anyone who wants a deeper dive into the various stages of early motherhood.

The app, however, provides quick tips and information on a wide range of topics, including, but by no means limited to: nutrition, exercises, choosing a provider, planning for birth, symptom management, navigating doctors’ appointments, after-birth care for mom and baby, miscarriage loss, breastfeeding, postpartum depression, birth trauma, etc. Whatever the topic, Bella offers encouraging, practical advice informed by both her professional training and her experience as a mother.

Bridging medical care and holistic wisdom

While many women wrestle with the tension between modern medical guidance, the resurgence of holistic birth practices, and their own God-given intuition, Bella believes these three can work together in harmony.

“I am a mom who’s more on the holistic side and a nurse who deeply appreciates medical interventions, and that’s the philosophy that undergirds my books and the ‘I Am Motherhood app,’” she said. “I’m not telling you to have a free birth in your back yard, but I’m also not telling you to get every medical intervention available.”

The books and the app, she explained, are really a presentation of options informed by evidence-based research and her own varied experiences that empowers readers to “choose their own adventure.”

RELATED: What if the solution to American prosperity is hiding in plain sight?

Vintage Images/Getty Images

But guidance and knowledge are just the beginning. “I Am Motherhood” also includes multiple tools soon-to-be and new mothers need.

All your tools in one place

Talk to any woman who has been through it, and she will tell you how overwhelming the tracking process is. Leading up to birth, there is the due date calculator, the baby development tracker, the kick counter, and the contraction timer. After birth, mothers — bleeding and exhausted — then must immediately shift to meticulously tracking their baby’s feeding, sleep, and diapers.

Because each of these tracking tools is usually its own separate system, it is not uncommon for women to lose important information amid the chaos. I keenly recall scribbling down feeding times on a napkin at the hospital after the birth of my son. It was thrown away by cleaning staff while I was sleeping, and when the nurse later came to collect my information, I had nothing to tell her. Here I was a mother for all of six hours, and I was already failing.

The “I Am Motherhood” app, however, solves this problem by combining all these tools into one convenient place. Using the Baby Development Tracker, a pregnant mother can read all about her baby’s growth during each week of pregnancy; then she can click over to the Symptom Guide and get advice on how to manage her exact symptoms for the specific trimester she is in.

As birth nears, she can count her baby’s kicks and time her contractions. After her child is born, the feeding, sleep, and diaper trackers help her stay organized and calm. For the modern mother, “I Am Motherhood’s” tool feature is the remedy for the overwhelming chaos of trying to track it all on her own.

Knowledge is power

In an era defined by social media debates, widely circulating misinformation, and the heightening tension between modern and holistic medicine, so many women's journeys into motherhood are defined by self-doubt, paralysis, and poor decisions.

This was me. Overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information out there and unsure of how to even begin navigating through it, I was the girl who showed up at the hospital with nothing more than an overnight bag and a timid countenance. No birth plan, no technical knowledge, no ability to advocate for myself — just a prayer that it would all work out one way or the other.

And it did, but not without serious complications. As I was exploring the “I Am Motherhood” app, all I could think was, man, how different things would have been for me if I had had this!

“Knowledge is power,” Bella said. “And this app is about empowering women with information that allows them to be active participants in their journeys into motherhood. It’s about teaching women how to personalize their experiences so that they can be present instead of anxious.”

In a world flooded with noise, conflicting advice, and self-doubt, “I Am Motherhood” offers something truly valuable: clear, compassionate guidance that honors both medical wisdom and a mother’s intuition. Whether you’re newly pregnant or deep in the trenches of postpartum life, this app serves as a steady companion, helping you move from overwhelmed to empowered.

Disclaimer: The “I Am Motherhood” app is designed to educate and support, but it is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Always consult your health care provider for personalized medical guidance. Bella McIntire is the wife of BlazeTV's "Steve Deace Show" producer Aaron McIntire.