Kinjal Vasavada

Full story @ExpectMore @AriadneLabs https://www.expectingmore.org/2020/01/07/just-breathe-the-story-of-a-growing-family-in-america-part-1/ … @NYTWomen @NYTParenting @BostonGlobe @forbeswomen @HuffPostWomen @TheAtlantic @PPFA #pregnancytech #digitalhealth #healthapp #maternalheathmatters #femtech #femhealth #reproductivehealth

As Adriana processed her feelings of betrayal, confusion, and shock, her phone would buzz with notifications like this one: “Your baby is as big as a spaghetti squash!”

In the past few years, period tracking and digital contraception apps have come under fire for a multitude of reasons – being marketed as effective contraceptives (and failing), being designed by men for men, and failing users who don’t fit the archetypal user with regular cycles

Like Adriana, many have echoed frustrations about their period tracking and digital contraception app’s inability to account for changes in their health status (events like surgery and abortion) and the events’ impacts on their menstrual cycles @kait_tiffany @voxdotcom @guardian

“We just followed whatever the app said – don’t ever do that. It’s not 100% accurate, but I put so much trust in the app.”

Adriana had been using the Glo app to track her period and ovulation dates, yet with period irregularities due to her PCOS and recent appendix removal surgery, her projected ovulation dates proved incorrect.

“Within hospitals in New York City, black and Latina women are at higher risk of severe maternal morbidity than white women; this is NOT associated with differences in types of insurance.” https://twitter.com/LizHowellMD/status/1215405809703817217 …

Full story here: https://www.expectingmore.org/2020/01/07/just-breathe-the-story-of-a-growing-family-in-america-part-1/ … @ExpectMore @AriadneLabs #PatientExperience #primarycare #PCOS #MentalHealthAwareness #healthcaredesign

E was also the first provider to assess Adriana’s depression symptoms and severity, get Adriana on medication, and help her quit smoking after nearly a decade.

“I like that consistency of being told what she’s doing as she’s doing it. That way if I have a question as she’s doing something I ask in real time. I like that a lot because it was something I needed growing up that I didn’t get. Getting that from a PCP is great.”

After seeking care from many different providers and taking a decade long hiatus from the healthcare system, Adriana finally met E, her PCP. “We have a great bond. She made me feel really comfortable. She’d walk me through the process of what she was going to do.”

‘You have a cyst in your ovaries, that should go away on its own.’ That was all I knew for years. • • Since her childhood, Adriana has had a series of health experiences where her concerns were dismissed, and… https://www.instagram.com/p/B7HubXjBg1K/?igshid=dar6yqzsu1kn …

The anxiety this experience caused Adriana is hard to ignore: “My boyfriend and I are having doubts about me giving birth here.” Read here:https://www.expectingmore.org/2020/01/07/just-breathe-the-story-of-a-growing-family-in-america-part-1/ … @ExpectMore @AriadneLabs

“Modern L&D units are extraordinarily complex and fraught with uncertainty regarding when patients will arrive, how they will progress, what their future needs will be.”~@neel_shah Complexity can explain care coordination difficulties, but racial disparity remains unexplained.

The Listening to Mothers III survey reported that more than a quarter of Black and Hispanic mothers meet their primary birth attendants for the first time during childbirth, compared with 18% of white mothers.