Count the Kicks

Review by eFreeware

Late pregnancy brings a long list of things to keep track of, and one of the most important is how often your baby moves. A change in those movements can be the earliest sign that something is wrong, and sometimes the only one, which is why health campaigns have spent years teaching expectant parents to pay attention to them. Count the Kicks is the app built around that idea, published by Healthy Birth Day, Inc. and free to install.

It has been available for a long time, arriving in April 2014, and has built up more than 100,000 installs with a 4.2 average across roughly a thousand ratings. That track record matters for a medical utility: this is not a novelty app that disappears after a few months. What it offers is a structured way to record your baby's movements each day during the third trimester, so you have a clear picture of what is normal for your pregnancy rather than relying on memory.

What daily kick counting looks like here

The core of the app is a daily counting session. You track your baby's movements during the third trimester, save the session, and the app builds a history from those entries. Over time, that history becomes the reference point: easy-to-read graphs show your baby's normal movement pattern, so you can see how today compares with the previous days and weeks rather than judging one session in isolation.

That comparison is the whole point. The campaign behind the app exists because a shift in how much a baby moves can be the first sign, and occasionally the only one, that the baby is in distress and needs a provider's check. A single count on its own tells you very little; a series of counts tells you what is typical for your baby and makes any deviation visible. The graphs are the feature that turns individual sessions into something you can act on.

Parents expecting twins are covered too. The app supports tracking movements for single babies or twins, so you are not trying to hold two separate patterns in your head. If you are carrying more than one baby, that separation seems like the most useful part of the design.

The features around the counting

A few supporting tools make the routine easier to keep up. Notifications remind you to count kicks, which matters when the sessions need to happen daily and life gets busy. After you save a session, the app shows a daily interactive and educational message, so each entry comes with something to read rather than being pure data entry.

Kick counting records can be exported and sent straight from the app, so bringing your movement history to an appointment or sharing it with a provider is simple. The app is available in 12 languages: Amharic, Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Haitian-Creole, Hindi, Marshallese, Russian, Spanish, Swahili, and Vietnamese. That range is unusually broad for a health app and makes it usable for families who would otherwise be working in a second language.

There is also an optional survey where users can report their experience with the app and the outcome of their pregnancy, and a section of baby save stories inside the app. Users can submit their own story directly from the app as well. For anyone who has been reassured by reading other parents' accounts during a worrying pregnancy, that section is likely to be the emotional center of the app rather than a side note.

What it costs and what it asks of you

The app is free, carries no ads and offers no in-app purchases. Nothing in it is gated behind a payment, which is consistent with its origins as a public health campaign tool rather than a commercial product. The app is free.

What it does ask for is consistency. Counting kicks is a daily habit during the third trimester, and the value of the graphs depends on you showing up often enough to establish a baseline. The reminder notifications exist precisely because that discipline is easy to lose.

One practical consideration: this is a tracking and awareness tool, not a diagnostic one. The app helps you record movements and notice changes, and any change should be checked by a provider. It supports the conversation with your care team rather than replacing it, and it should be treated that way.

Getting the most from the routine

The most sensible approach is to start counting early in the third trimester and keep the sessions roughly consistent in time and setting, since the graphs are only as meaningful as the routine behind them. Pick a moment when you are likely to be still and aware of your baby's movements, save the session, and let the history accumulate. Within a couple of weeks you should have a pattern you can actually read.

Use the data-sharing feature when it counts. If you notice a change in your baby's movements, having the recorded history ready to send means your provider sees the trend, not just your description of it. That is a more useful conversation than trying to recall how active your baby was three days ago.

If you are expecting twins, set up both babies from the start so the two patterns develop side by side. If English is not your first language, switch to whichever of the twelve options you read most comfortably; a medical routine you perform daily should not be a language exercise. And if you find the baby save stories helpful, the submission option lets you add your own experience for the parents who come after you.

A dependable tool for the third trimester

Count the Kicks does one job and does it without charging for it. The combination of daily sessions, readable graphs, reminders, data export and twelve languages covers the practical needs of kick counting well, and the baby save stories give the app a human side that a pure tracker would lack. The 4.2 rating across about a thousand reviews suggests it has served its users adequately over the years.

It is not a general pregnancy companion and does not try to be. If you are in your third trimester and want a simple, free way to record your baby's movements and see the pattern clearly, this is a well-established option worth installing. If you want a broad pregnancy tracker with appointments, symptoms and articles, this app is narrower than that, and its narrower scope is what you would be getting.