How Bumpwise verdicts work

Bumpwise is an informational tool, not medical advice. It summarizes published guidance from public health authorities so you can have better conversations with your own healthcare provider — who always has the final word.

Where the information comes from

Every ingredient and food in the Bumpwise library cites public guidance from these organizations — and only these organizations:

Each entry shows its sources with the date we accessed them, plus the date we last reviewed the entry. You can tap through to read the original guidance yourself. The weekly "This Week" tips carry the same discipline: every card cites the guidance it draws on, with its review date.

How weeks are counted

Weeks and trimesters use the standard 40-week convention counted from the last menstrual period — the same dating NHS and ACOG guidance uses — applied to the due date you enter.

How a scan becomes a verdict

  1. Barcode path: the barcode is looked up in the public Open Food Facts / Open Beauty Facts databases to fetch the product's ingredient list.
  2. Label path: the camera reads the ingredient panel directly on your device — you see and can correct exactly what was read before any verdict is shown.
  3. Each ingredient is matched against the Bumpwise library and rated Avoid, Caution, or No flags, with per-trimester notes where guidance differs by stage.
  4. The product verdict reflects the most significant finding. Bumpwise never labels a product "Safe" — the best result is "No flagged ingredients."

Recall flags

Barcode-scanned food products are also checked against FDA enforcement reports via openFDA. A match is made on product name and brand, so a flag means "may affect" — recalls are lot-specific, and the details always lead with the lot codes to check against your package. Two honest limits: openFDA doesn't publish cosmetics recalls, so skincare products aren't checked; and the absence of a flag is never a promise that no recall exists. Queries contain only product terms — no personal data.

What Bumpwise does when it doesn't know

Ingredients that aren't in our library are listed as "not in our library yet" — never guessed, never scored. If the camera misreads something ambiguous (for example, text that could be two different ingredients), Bumpwise deliberately declines to match it rather than risk a wrong answer. The verdict also shows what percentage of the label was recognized.

What Bumpwise doesn't cover

Medications and supplements dosing. For anything medication-related, talk to your pharmacist or provider — that's their expertise, and getting it right matters too much.

Corrections & suggestions

Spot something that looks wrong, or scan an ingredient we don't have yet? Every verdict with an unrecognized ingredient has a "Suggest these for the library" button, and products we can't find have a "Tell us about this product" button — both open a pre-filled email you send from your own account (nothing is collected by the app). Or email enriquebarclayrd@gmail.com directly. Corrections and additions ship in app updates, and every entry's review date is visible in the app.