The Melanated Sanctuary

Problem Space 

How can we equip Black and Brown mothers and their partners with a digital tool to efficiently organize pregnancy/postpartum information so that they can proactively make informed decisions and improve their maternal health outcomes?

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Problem Background  

The Black maternal health crisis in the US affects millions of women each year. They are also 3x more likely to die from childbirth-related causes and experience traumatic births. Perinatal depression (PPD) is a significant risk for new mothers, with about 50% of cases undiagnosed. Black and Brown women are disproportionately affected, experiencing PPD up to 3x the rate of white women, with up to a 280% increase in the last decade. Contributing factors include the underrepresentation of Black/Brown OBGYNs (10%) and implicit bias in healthcare. Traditional mental health approaches, often reactive, leave mothers without proactive support.

Current interventions, such as PPD surveys given during brief prenatal appointments, are limited in effectiveness due to various factors, including provider caseloads and cultural sensitivity. Prenatal care is often reactive, both from an emotional and physical standpoint. The hope is that research shows that up to 85% of pregnancy and birth-related complications are actually preventable. 

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Research Insights & User Painpoints

Through in-depth qualitative interviews (8) and a survey (7) with 8 Black/Brown mothers, we discovered the following pain points: 

• 6/8 women interviewed and 5/7 surveyed shared that isolation and lack of emotional support: Despite having family/friends available, mothers felt unsupported due to limited awareness and time constraints for seeking resources (therapy, mom groups).
• 6/8 women interviewed and 5/7 surveyed shared that they experienced a lack of validation and feeling unheard: Mothers felt physically cared for but emotionally unheard by healthcare providers, hindering communication about struggles.
• 8/8 women interviewed and 7/7 surveyed shared their frustration over a lack of culturally relevant resources: Anxiety stemmed from navigating motherhood alongside other responsibilities, compounded by fears related to Black maternal health disparities.
• 8/8 women interviewed and 7/7 surveyed shared the need for accessible education and personalized resources: No healthcare provider directly discussed PPD beyond providing the diagnostic survey.

Feedback

Our preliminary user research to validate this problem with melanated mamas uncovered the following primary insights: 

• Expecting mothers desired convenient access to resources and tools for their physical and emotional motherhood journey, yet felt overwhelmed by time constraints and uncertainty about where to start. 
• They sought proactive engagement and empowerment, valuing a sense of community for validation and understanding through shared experiences. 
• Open discussion about struggles was uncommon until after personal experiences, hindering timely access to support/guidance on topics like mental health, birth plans, and navigating maternal healthcare as melanted mamas.

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Solution Explanation

Our hypothesis is that if 85% of childbirth-related complications are preventable, then helping melanated mamas own their pregnancies and take a proactive approach to their maternal health through a holistic, thorough, & culturally relevant  set of resources would help them avoid some of those complications because they deserve better! 

The Black maternal health crisis significantly impacts Black and Brown women, leading to higher rates of childbirth complications and maternal mortality. However, research shows that 85% of these complications are preventable. Factors such as implicit biases and reactive prenatal care contribute to these challenges.

Our solution aims to empower expecting Black and Brown women—whom we refer to as melanated mamas—by providing them with proactive resources to navigate their pregnancies. By equipping them with knowledge and tools from the outset, these women can advocate for their own health and well-being more effectively.

For instance, gestational diabetes screenings are typically conducted at 20 weeks, but nutrition plays a crucial role throughout pregnancy. By understanding the importance of nutrition from day one, melanated mamas can better manage their health and reduce complications. Similarly, perinatal depression is often addressed only through brief surveys during prenatal and postpartum visits, with little follow-up discussion. By offering resources and education on recognizing and managing perinatal depression, we enable women to seek the help they need and engage in meaningful conversations with their providers.

In terms of birth preparation, many providers only discuss options during the third trimester. By learning about birth options early, women can make informed decisions and better plan their birth experience.

The Melanated Sanctuary is designed not as a comprehensive resource list but as a supportive space where women can explore and learn about maintaining a holistic pregnancy. It empowers them to take ownership of their journey, rather than relying solely on their providers to cover every aspect. This is a resource where they can feel represented and seen through the images and content, as well as a personalized experience through countdown trackers, notes sections, and their own curated collections. This resource serves as a continuous resource to explore/research with ease, offering support and confidence throughout pregnancy and postpartum. 

Based on our target users’ pain points and taking account technical feasibility and Co.Lab time constraints, we decided on the following product  features: 

• Resource library of maternal health categoriessome text
  • This was a solution to their frustration over proactively navigating pregnancy. They shared they were inundated with apps/resources about baby registries and child development, but not much to learn about and proactively navigate their own maternal health. 
• Personalized profile/vision board where users can save from the resource library or add links from other sources and create organizational bucketssome text
  • Doing a google search at 2am when you’re up with pregnancy symptoms like nausea or heartburn never ends well! This was an answer to their expressed frustrations of being able to organize/save their research in one spot so they could come up with a proactive plan and even be able to go to appointments informed with questions and to advocate for themselves. 
• Due date countdown ticker & culturally diverse imagessome text
  • This was a response to feeling unheard in much of their prenatal care. We wanted melanated mamas to feel immediately seen upon entering The Melanated Sanctuary, from the home page and intro video. Where they could put their guard down and trust that this resource would be relevant for them! 
• Calendar integration, search bar, & notessome text
  • Pregnancy and postpartum are beautiful and overwhelming seasons. We wanted to create features that simplified their life in small ways. “Where’s that article I found the other day on here?” and “When’s my next appointment? Let me jot down a note to ask my doctor if I can schedule my gestational diabetes screen earlier than 20 weeks!”

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Lofi & Hifi Mockups

After brainstorming, we created low-fidelity sketches to quickly visualize ideas and features, allowing us to effectively communicate the concept: a resource library of curated articles designed to empower melanated women in advocating for their own pregnancy health, where users can personalize their experience by curating their own collection of favorite articles in one place.

After confirming with the developers that the idea was feasible, we began prioritizing features and creating low-fidelity wireframes with a mobile-first approach.

However, the developers later advised switching to a desktop-first design to avoid delays in the development process. Despite this, we were able to validate the task and user flows using the low-fidelity wireframes, which provided the necessary information for the developers to begin their work. Given the time constraints, we moved directly into creating high-fidelity wireframes, incorporating visual concepts as we developed the brand identity simultaneously:

Through user research, we discovered that our branding and identity needed to capture the essence of pregnancy, joy, community, empowerment, and care. We carefully selected colors that evoke feelings of empowerment and joy while ensuring accessibility, making them the ideal choice to represent our logo and its values.

Once our brand and identity were defined, we proceeded to create high-fidelity wireframes and mockups, which were then handed off to the developers for implementation.

Iterative Design Learnings

After presenting our prototype to users again, we discovered the need for a clear tagline and more relevant copy for the hero image to better align with the subject. We also identified the importance of organizing content into folders and adding a delete icon to allow users to remove content easily.

After refining the copy for the hero image to better align with the subject, we plan to implement the remaining two insights: organizing content into folders and introducing a delete icon for easier content management in the future.

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Implementation Details 

Technical implementation

Where is it hosted?

• The application is hosted with the backend on AWS and the frontend on Render.

What is your tech stack?

• The tech stack includes Flask for the backend, React with Vite for the frontend, and MySQL as the database. We use CSS and React Bootstrap for styling, alongside tools like Swagger for API documentation and JWT/ Google Auth for secure authentication.

High level journey of a request

• We chose Flask for its lightweight and flexible nature, allowing us to build APIs efficiently. React with Vite provides a fast development environment and enhances user interactivity, while MySQL offers reliable and scalable data management. Using React Bootstrap helped streamline design with ready-to-use components. To improve, we could further optimize performance, enhance UI/UX design, and explore cloud-native solutions for better scalability.
• When a user interacts with the site, the frontend sends a request to the backend API, which handles CRUD operations such as creating, retrieving, updating, and deleting data in MySQL. The responses are processed on the frontend, ensuring the user experience remains seamless.

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Technical challenges

What was the hardest part of development? 

• We faced backend hosting space limitations, issues with managing authentication tokens on the frontend, and had to carefully balance time spent on design versus core functionality.

Does your app have any scaling issues? 

• Scaling may require upgrading backend storage to accommodate more data. Front-end performance is currently slower than desired, suggesting future upgrades or optimizations will be necessary.

What are some key takeaways?

• The development process taught us the importance of optimizing and organizing code, being adaptable, and focusing on creating functional products. Communication, proper code documentation, and a willingness to refine or adjust ideas were crucial to our success.

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Future Steps

After speaking with 3 customers (Black and Brown women who are either pregnant or mothers with infants whose pregnancy journey was still fresh in their mind), we learned that the product truly resonated with them - both in terms of the need, usefulness, and potential impact. They had some visual critiques, but loved the overall feel of the product. They recommended that content be organized on the site by resource type – such as separating content for each topic/folder by article/video/resource. Lastly, all users both during ideation phase and user testing stated they’d prefer an app (with website option) + integration of some sort of community- whether peers or expects. 

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