Q&A: Why startups should work with the healthcare industry to improve maternal care

On the heels of a $9.2 million Series A, Mahmee CEO and cofounder Melissa Hanna discusses the fragmented maternal healthcare experience in the U.S.

Compared with other wealthy countries, the U.S. lags when it comes to maternal health outcomes. Maternal mortality rates have generally worsened since 1987, reaching 23.8 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2020. The mortality rate for Black women was nearly three times higher than the rate for white women.

Melissa Hanna, CEO and cofounder of maternal health startup Mahmee, sat down with MobiHealthNews to discuss how their platform aims to improve pregnancy and postpartum care, the company's recent $9.2 million Series A raise and the growing digital maternal health landscape. This interview was edited for clarity and length.

MobiHealthNews: Can you tell me a bit about how Mahmee works from the patient perspective?

Melissa Hanna: New and expecting parents can join Mahmee for free. And the core aspect of that experience for anyone who's joining includes the unified health record for mom and baby. So, they're able to link together health record information from the mother's medical history and pregnancy history to the childbirth experience, and baby's birth story and first year of life. So, we really focus on conception through the baby's first year of life and documenting all of the aspects of care and health that happened during that time.

Another part of that is access to the national Mahmee network of providers that are using our software across the country. [They] are primarily community-based birth and infant care professionals. So those are folks that may be midwives, doulas, lactation consultants, home visiting nurses or home health providers, nutritionists, therapists, social workers. They're all types of community-based professionals that patients are likely to interface with at some point during their maternity experience but are often not considered core members of the patient's care team the way that OB-GYNs and pediatricians are.