By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn

4 in 5 moms go online at least once a month, according to My Mommy’s Online. The report is based on 2007 data from Simmons Consumer Research Survey published by eMarketer.

"Being a parent makes going online almost a necessity," according to eMarketer.

40% of all women who go online in the US are mothers with kids under 18. There are 35 million of them (including me).

Intriguingly, virtually all women who are pregnant (94%) use the Internet, and half of the mothers surveyed use the Internet more since having a child.

What do Moms do online?

94% visit portals
88% visit retailers
74% go for news and information
70% go for conversation.

BabyCenter found that 68% of moms regularly make purchases online. This makes sense: moms are busy people, shopping online is convenient and substitutes trips to the store.

Speaking of BabyCenter, it was arguably the most heavily shopped site in 2007 according to comScore (even though it is categorized the site as a media site).

In any case, BabyCenter reaches 78% of pregnant women and mothers of kids up to 24 months in the U.S.

The site also maintains a 60,000-mom panel for market research which is a rich mine for finding out What Moms Want. Since mothers are primary caregivers in the household, this is an important site for health.

Who owns BabyCenter? None other than Johnson & Johnson.

Jane’s Hot Points: Women are high information seekers during pregnancy and the first few years following delivery. Jay Bernhardt and Elizabeth Felter wrote about this phenomenon back in 2004, and the trend of online moms has grown since then. What they found then, and it’s truer than ever, is that online parents want to receive advice from other parents. Social networking + Mothers = a recipe for fertile consumer engagement.

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