Why I Don’t Want You Googling Your Pregnancy Symptoms

By Dr. Noa Sterling, M.D., FACOG

Picture this: It’s 2 AM, you’re 28 weeks pregnant, and you wake up with a sharp pain in your side. Your first thought is probably, Is this normal? So you grab your phone. Maybe you Google it, maybe you ask ChatGPT, or maybe you head to Reddit to see if anyone else has experienced the exact same thing.

Within minutes, you’ve gone from one relatively simple question to ten tabs, three possible diagnoses, a terrifying story from someone who was pregnant eight years ago, and absolutely no idea whether any of it actually applies to you.

As a board-certified ObGyn who has also been through three very different and difficult pregnancies myself, I understand this from both sides. I’ve taken care of patients who have lost entire nights of sleep to a Google spiral, and I’ve also been the pregnant person lying awake wondering whether something I was experiencing was normal. Even with all of my medical training, I know how different it feels when it’s your body, your pregnancy, and your baby.

That experience is a huge part of why I created Obi. Pregnancy comes with questions all day long, not just during the few minutes you have with your healthcare provider, and I believe women deserve a better place to take those questions than the entire internet.

The Problem With Googling Your Pregnancy Symptoms

Google is incredible at finding information, but pregnancy usually doesn’t need more information. It needs the right information, with the right context.

Search something like “cramping at 8 weeks pregnant,” “spotting during pregnancy,” or “decreased fetal movement,” and you’re going to get a little bit of everything. You may find excellent information from a hospital or professional medical organization right next to an old article, a personal birth story, a Reddit thread, advice written for a completely different healthcare system, or a commercial website trying to sell you something.

Some of that information may be completely accurate. Some of it may be outdated or wrong. More importantly, even accurate information may not apply to your specific situation.

That’s the problem. When you’re pregnant and worried, you shouldn’t also have to become a medical researcher trying to figure out which sources are trustworthy, which recommendations are current, and which information actually applies to you.

And What About ChatGPT?

AI has changed the way we search for information. Instead of scrolling through pages of Google results, you can now type a question into a general AI tool and get a polished answer in seconds. That can feel much easier, but easier doesn’t necessarily mean that the answer has the context you need, especially during pregnancy.

Pregnancy is incredibly nuanced. The answer to “Is this normal?” can depend on how far along you are, your symptoms, your health history, your medications, and what else is happening at the same time. Something that is common and reassuring in one situation may need to be evaluated in another. Sometimes you need information and reassurance; sometimes you need to call your provider; and sometimes you need to stop searching altogether and seek medical care.

General-purpose AI is designed to answer questions about almost everything. Obi was built specifically for pregnancy and postpartum. That distinction was very intentional.

When we created Ask Obi, I didn’t want to create another chatbot that simply generated an answer that sounded confident. I wanted women to have somewhere to ask the questions they were already taking to Google and generic AI and receive an answer grounded in evidence-based pregnancy and postpartum information, with the appropriate guardrails around when an app can help and when you need your actual healthcare provider.

The Google Spiral Is Real

When I was practicing, I saw the Google spiral all the time. A patient would come into an appointment exhausted because she had noticed one symptom the night before and started searching. One search led to another, then another, and before she knew it, something that may have had a very straightforward explanation had turned into hours of fear.

I also understand why it happens. I have a neuroscience degree. I went to medical school, completed an ObGyn residency, and spent years caring for pregnant women. Then I became the pregnant patient, and I still worried. I still wanted reassurance. I still experienced firsthand how different it is to know the medicine intellectually versus being the person whose pregnancy and baby are involved.

That’s one of the biggest lessons my own pregnancies taught me. Simply having access to more information doesn’t necessarily create peace of mind. Having the right information, delivered with context and nuance, can.

Your Questions Don’t Follow Office Hours

One of the biggest gaps in traditional prenatal care is everything that happens between appointments. You might have a relatively short visit with your provider and then go weeks before seeing them again, but pregnancy is happening every hour of every day.

The weird discharge happens on Saturday. Your lab results appear in your patient portal before your provider has called you. You realize after your appointment that you forgot to ask whether your skincare ingredient is safe. You take a medication and immediately wonder whether you should have. You notice something different about your baby’s movements at 11 PM.

Of course women Google these things. Of course they’re asking ChatGPT. We’ve created a healthcare system where women have hundreds of questions between appointments and very few places to take them.

The problem isn’t that you’re asking too many questions. The problem is that we haven’t given you a better place to ask them.

That’s what I wanted to change.

Why I Created Obi

Obi is the pregnancy and postpartum app I wish I had during my own pregnancies. I didn’t create it to replace your ObGyn, midwife, or healthcare team. I created it to help fill the enormous information and support gap that exists between your appointments.

At the center of the app is Ask Obi, our AI-powered pregnancy and postpartum assistant. You can ask the question you would normally type into Google or a general AI tool and receive evidence-based information designed specifically for pregnancy and postpartum.

The answers are grounded in trusted medical information and shaped by my clinical expertise as a board-certified ObGyn. Just as importantly, we built Ask Obi with guardrails because there are situations where the right response isn’t more information. It’s telling you that you need to call your provider or seek immediate medical care.

An app should know its limits. Obi isn’t there to diagnose you, and it isn’t there to replace your healthcare team. It’s there to help you better understand what you’re experiencing, know what questions to ask, and recognize when you need additional care.

Obi Is More Than an AI Chatbot

I also knew that answering medical questions wasn’t enough. One of the things I felt was missing both as an ObGyn and during my own pregnancies was support for the whole mother, not just information about the baby.

That’s why Obi includes evidence-based pregnancy and postpartum education that changes with where you are in your journey, mental health and wellbeing support, recurring check-ins, and community alongside Ask Obi. We designed the entire experience with the goal of helping you feel less anxious and more confident in the decisions you’re making throughout pregnancy and postpartum.

I don’t want you to become dependent on an app. I want you to understand your body, feel prepared for your appointments, know how to advocate for yourself, and have reliable information to turn to when questions inevitably come up.

The Questions You Ask Are Health Data, Too

There’s another piece of this conversation that I think is becoming increasingly important as more women use AI for health questions: privacy.

Think about what you actually reveal when you ask a pregnancy question. If you type, “I’m 24 weeks pregnant and taking this medication—is it safe?” you’ve shared information about your pregnancy, gestational age, and medication use. If you ask, “I’m six weeks postpartum and having intrusive thoughts—is this normal?” you’ve shared incredibly personal information about your postpartum status and mental health.

Those aren’t just random searches. They are pieces of your health story, and I believe we should treat them that way.

Privacy was part of the conversation when we built Obi from the beginning. Obi does not sell your health data, and your Ask Obi questions aren’t sold to advertisers or data brokers. We don’t believe getting an answer about your pregnancy should mean turning your pregnancy into someone else’s marketing opportunity.

Your pregnancy information is personal. Your mental health information is personal. The questions you’re afraid to ask out loud are personal. You should be able to get support without wondering who else is benefiting from the information you’re sharing.

There Has to Be a Better Way Than the 2 AM Google Spiral

I don’t think women Google too much because they’re overly anxious. I think women Google because pregnancy brings up hundreds of questions between appointments and, historically, our healthcare system hasn’t given them enough places to turn.

We can do better than that.

You deserve evidence-based information that takes the nuance of pregnancy seriously. You deserve to understand what may be normal, what deserves a conversation with your provider, and what shouldn’t wait. You deserve technology built specifically for pregnancy and postpartum rather than trying to sort through the entire internet every time something new happens.

Most importantly, you deserve to feel informed and supported without sacrificing your privacy or replacing the relationship you have with your actual healthcare team.

That is why I created Obi. I wanted there to be somewhere better to go when the questions start, especially at 2 AM when your doctor’s office is closed and Google is about to send you down a rabbit hole.

Don’t Google. Ask Obi.