BabyCenter

BabyCenter was founded in October 1997 by Stanford University MBA graduates Matt Glickman and Mark Selcow, who recognized a need for information about pregnancy and parenting on the internet. BabyCenter was initially funded through $13.5 million in startup capital funding from venture capital firms, including Bessemer Venture Partners, Intel, and Trinity Ventures. The funds were used to open the BabyCenter Store in October 1998.[1][3][4]

In the early years of its operation, BabyCenter offered multiple resources and services for parents, including a website that provided medically reviewed information and guidance to new and expectant parents on such topics as fertility, labor, and childcare; a weekly email for pregnant women tailored to their week of pregnancy (based on their pregnancy due date); and community groups and chat rooms for pregnant couples and parents to discuss pregnancy and child-rearing strategies.

The site grew quickly, and by early 1999 had 175 employees and an annual revenue of $35 million. In April of that year, the two founders sold BabyCenter to another website, eToys.com, for $190 million in stock. Twenty-three months later, in 2001, shortly before declaring bankruptcy, eToys sold the site to Johnson & Johnson for $10 million.

Starting in 2005, BabyCenter launched an expansion plan, extending its global network to Australia, China, and eventually India, staffing each outpost with local editors. In 2007, BabyCenter launched a Spanish language website as well as its first mobile site. BabyCenter released My Pregnancy Today, its first mobile app, to Apple's App Store in August 2010 and to the Android market in April 2011. The app provided daily information, nutrition tips, advice relevant to the user's week of pregnancy, and 3-D animated videos showcasing a baby's development in utero. In 2015, BabyCenter released Mom Feed, its first mobile app for parents of toddlers and older children (ages 1 to 8). Mom Feed offered personalized, stage-based information as well as content from the BabyCenter Community and Blog in a real-time stream.[5][6][7][8]

In 2019, Johnson & Johnson sold Baby Center to Everyday Health Group, a division of J2 Global, the Los Angeles-based parent company of Ziff Davis. Neither side disclosed terms of the deal.[2]

BabyCenter has 11 country and region-specific websites around the world, including sites for the United States, Canada, Australia, Brazil, India, Malaysia, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Latin American and the Arabian Peninsula. Parents can find parenting and pregnancy advice in eight languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, French, German, Hindi, and Malay (Bahasa Malaysia).[9]

BabyCenter content for each country- or region-specific site is written by an editorial team based in that country or region. Medical and health content for each site is reviewed by a medical advisory board based there and adheres to that country or region's medical standards. For example, the U.S. site works with and follows the recommendations of such U.S. medical authorities as the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Congress of Obstetrics & Gynecology and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine.

Content and products for BabyCentre UK and for BabyCenter in Canada, Australia, Brazil, India, Malaysia, Germany, France and the Arabian Peninsula are managed by Thrive, a specialist health and behaviour change communications agency.[10][11]

From its earliest days, BabyCenter has had a community area that allows people to join a group of parents with children born in the same month, known as a Birth Club. BabyCenter launched a blog called Momformation in 2007. Eventually, the name was changed to BabyCenter Blog. In March 2019, Babycenter instituted censorship and began blocking search functions in the forum portion of their site. [12][13]

The app is available in six languages, although not all features are supported for every market. Initially the apps only featured pregnancy articles that could be found on the BabyCenter website, but over the years the feature set has expanded to include a growing list of app-specific tools such as a photo journal for pregnant women, a photo journal for documenting a baby's first year, and an "is it safe?" tool to answer safety-related questions about pregnancy.[14]