SMART Phones for SMART Mums: a pilot interactive smart phone program for women following gestational diabetes

Subjects will be recruited during a gestational diabetes pregnancy. However, the active intervention will commence from the time of discharge from hospital. Intervention subjects will be given guidelines to follow (standard post gestational diabetes booklet from Diabetes Australia), a Fitbit wrist band activity monitor (to be worn continuously), and a telephone lifestyle counselling session with a dietician (of no more than 1 hour duration) at 6-10 weeks post-partum. They will subsequently receive 3-4 semi-personalised and culturally sensitive SMS messages per week, to provide advice, motivation, information and support with a focus on addressing and overcoming known barriers to behaviour change. The SMS messages will be spaced 1-2 days apart. They will have the opportunity to have further contact with the lifestyle counsellor if required by telephone, SMS or email. Data from the activity monitor will be visible to the subject, but also downloaded centrally via the internet and thus accessible to the investigators. This will enable monitoring of physical activity which will also be fed back into the SMS messaging. The intervention goes for 6 months from the initial counselling session, in the post-partum period.