This Mother’s Day, we’re highlighting innovations transforming maternal health care. While traditional approaches to pregnancy and childbirth have remained largely unchanged for decades, new digital health solutions are emerging to address critical gaps in maternal care. This is particularly important in the United States, which faces one of the highest maternal morbidity and mortality rates among developed nations.

One standout example is Birthvue™, an AI-powered platform designed to redefine labor and delivery care. Birthvue addresses a critical problem in maternal care—approximately 40% of mothers arrive at the hospital too early during labor, leading to triage inefficiencies, or too late, which can lead to ER admissions, unnecessary interventions and potentially dangerous situations.

Birthvue’s in-home contraction monitor and education platform helps mothers differentiate between false labor (Braxton Hicks contractions) and true labor, reducing anxiety and unnecessary hospital visits. The system employs a proprietary AI algorithm to deliver real-time, easily understandable updates on labor progression. This empowers women with personalized guidance, relaxation techniques, and a supportive digital toolkit throughout their childbirth journey.

“We wanted to create a tool that gives mothers more agency in their birth experience while ensuring safety,” says Roshane Sasson, founder and CEO of Birthvue. The company recently celebrated a significant milestone when their first mother using the technology delivered her baby after arriving at the hospital just four hours before delivery. Sasson added, “This was a true testament to the system’s effectiveness in helping women stay comfortable at home during early labor.”

At HITLAB, we recently partnered with Birthvue to complete a user feedback study with OB/GYNs. Our research revealed that physicians see Birthvue as valuable for patient education, allowing expectant mothers to independently access information about procedures and treatments during labor. OB/GYNs also highlighted Birthvue’s ability to help facilitate challenging conversations, particularly with patients hesitant about C-sections.

The innovation ecosystem has taken notice of Birthvue’s potential. The company won the Mt. Sinai pitch competition, entered their incubator, and are currently designing a partnership study with NY Health and Hospitals’ Chief OB/Gyn Dr. Mohamed Ghafar as the Principal Investigator. Birthvue was also an NYU Stern Venture Fellows winner and a semi-finalist in the NYU Berkeley Entrepreneur’s Challenge. Their success story also highlights the importance of networking in healthcare innovation—Helene Rutledge met Roshane through one of our HITLAB events and joined as Cofounder and COO, and the connection to Mt. Sinai was through meeting the DIH Director Carmen Minsal at the Summit a year ago, demonstrating how connections within the health technology community can foster collaboration and growth.

As we celebrate mothers this May, it’s encouraging to see technology being leveraged to improve the pregnancy and childbirth experience, particularly solutions like Birthvue that aim to address the concerning statistics of maternal health in America, where approximately 700 women lose their lives annually due to pregnancy complications.