Becoming a mom changed the trajectory of my career and is the reason I developed Flourish Care. I am a biomedical engineer by background, and prior to becoming a mom I worked in R&D and business development. Most of the medical devices I worked on were specific to women’s health. So when I got pregnant with my oldest son, I thought I was set after spending 20 years in the healthcare space.

During pregnancy and after giving birth, I quickly realized I had no idea what I was doing. I had no guidance on how to take care of myself or my new baby. I felt overwhelmed and lost. At some point during my journey, someone mentioned looking into a doula, which is a non-medical provider in the community who becomes a part of your care team to support you physically and emotionally during pregnancy, birth and postpartum. I didn’t know much about doulas but felt desperate, so I spent hours and hours doing the research and finding a doula in my area. I hired my doula and it was one of the best decisions I made because she helped me know what to ask for and how to advocate for myself. She helped guide me on how to care for myself during pregnancy, support the birth experience I wanted and thrive in those early days of new mom life caring for my baby boy.

I started talking to other new parents and quickly realized I wasn’t alone in feeling lost as a new parent. That’s when I knew that in addition to working on the medical products side of healthcare, I wanted to find a way to help new parents from the support side of things.

In those early days of postpartum life, I decided I was going to make it my mission to find a solution to improve maternity care in the U.S. and work to change reimbursement policies so families can afford care. That goal was the impetus for Flourish Care. Flourish Care is a tech-enabled maternal healthcare company that empowers families with wellness programs and insurance-reimbursed community care, including doulas, from pregnancy to parenthood.

My oldest son recently turned 9-years-old. Flourish Care didn’t come to fruition overnight; it’s been a years-long journey to get where we are today. And there is still a long way to go to ensure new parents have all the support they need. It is my goal to make sure parents have access to support and care beyond the clinics and hospital walls by partnering with hospitals and insurance companies to provide our maternal wellness programs for free to eligible patients.

My background is in biomedical engineering and I worked at some of the top medical device companies in the world. I’ve always been passionate about healthcare and technology and thought I’d leave my mark on the medical device side of healthcare.

But after becoming a mom, I realized there was a need for more support services. As important as the medical devices are, it’s just as important for parents to have access to services to improve health outcomes. At the time, I had no idea what community support was out there for moms. But when I started talking to medical professionals and other new parents, I quickly learned there were community care professionals like lactation consultants and doulas. A doula is a dedicated care professional that collaborates with your medical birth team to work alongside your doctors, nurses and midwives.

I’d never heard of a doula (which is crazy since I worked in the medical space), but did my research on what improved anxiety and postpartum depression rates, increased breastfeeding rates and lowered NICU and C-section rates. That’s when I learned about doulas and was blessed with the ability to invest out of pocket for one. At that point in time, insurance didn’t cover doula services, but it was the best investment I made and helped me feel more confident and empowered as a new mom.

I knew I wasn’t alone in not knowing about doulas and felt new parents needed to know about these services. I also strongly believed these services needed to become something insurance-covered so that all parents could have access.

And that’s where Flourish Care comes into play. Flourish Care empowers new families with insurance-reimbursed care such as doulas to help with prenatal and postpartum care. We offer two types of doulas. A birth doula helps families prepare for birth and are present during labor and delivery. A postpartum doula is someone who comes in after the baby is born to help your family adjust to newborn life.

Studies show doulas have a huge impact on the health of the baby, mother and family, decreasing NICU and c-section rates and increasing breastfeeding rates. It’s actually standard of care in many countries and at Flourish Care, we are working to bring these solutions to families in the United States. Currently, the United States has the worst maternal death rate out of any other developed nation and is the only country that doesn’t guarantee access to home providers or paid parental leave. But, we know from over 100 published articles from medical professionals as well as our clinical study that community providers like doulas improve maternal outcomes and patients want that type of care. We are currently conducting a study to see how patients are using doulas and found that when going through Flourish Care, there was 10 times more enrollment than the 6% of families using doulas today across the country, and incredibly high engagement and satisfaction with expecting and postpartum mothers.

So how are we working to enroll and engage new parents? Expecting and new families start by taking a wellness assessment to understand their needs including cultural and language preferences. Once they do that, we check the patient’s insurance coverage and match them with a local, vetted doula. Our Flourish Care team also provides monthly education to prepare for birth and help with emotional and physical support during birth and in the postpartum months.

Right now, 13 states offer insurance reimbursement for doula care, expanding to 30 over the next year. We are on a mission to make that available to new families in all 50 states.

In 2020, Flourish Care started with a different business model and we made a huge pivot to get where we are today. We first launched as an experiential baby registry focused on wellness essentials for mom and baby. Parents would register for doulas, lactation consultants, newborn care specialists, etc. and send that registry over to family and friends to purchase. We got so much stuff for our babies but lacked the support. This crowdsourcing model was a way to get new parents support services. Because most of the support services are paid for out-of-pocket this was a way parents could get gifted additional things that would help them thrive in new parenthood.

After many years of advocating for policy changes, insurance companies started recognizing the importance of these support services and a handful of states started reimbursing for them. We pivoted from a registry to a health tech platform to provide insurance-reimbursed wellness programs and doula care from pregnancy through birth and postpartum. Now, we partner with health systems and health plans to offer this much-needed support to their patients free of charge. Lawmakers are starting to recognize the importance of community-based care in improving maternal health outcomes and we this pivot from registry to health tech platform allows us to support any state that offers doula reimbursement.

This pivot was not easy nor did it happen overnight. It took over two years of planning, working and reimagining how we can help improve maternal health outcomes. Pivoting takes patience and that patience is now paying off as we start to see more states consider doula reimbursement.

I’m so proud to share that we recently closed our seed round and are going to be able to help so many more pregnant people. But raising money in the women’s health space was no easy task.

Let me backtrack. We bootstrapped our business for the first five years. Our scrappy, can do attitude combined with amazing supporters in the women’s health space helped us get to where we are today. We’ve also won a few awards from accelerator and business programs over the years, which helped us bring Flourish Care to market and show our proof of concept.
Since 2021, I have been out in the communities introducing people to Flourish Care. My team has attended health conferences, women leadership groups and investor events to put our name out there. But I’ll be honest; it was an uphill battle. Women make up approximately 11% of investing partners at venture capital firms and less than 2% of VC dollars go to startups with women-founded companies, so I found myself in the room with a lot of men who thought the concept was great, but didn’t truly understand the difference support services made for maternal health outcomes.

I was met with a lot of pushback, a lot of questions and a lot of rejection. While at times I felt very discouraged, I knew deep down it was just a matter of when, not if we found the right women’s health advocates. Fundraising is discouraging, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. But, if you have a business that’s worth investing in, you will find those who believe in you and your idea.

Since last year, we have helped hundreds of new parents get insurance-covered doula support. We are so grateful to our investors and supporters who are changing the landscape of maternal health and making a difference for the next generations.