Partners in fight to reduce childbirth-related deaths

Meg Wirth was studying deaths related to childbirth in Indonesia when one of her colleagues, an obstetrician, died of childbirth complications at a hospital.

She calls the death sobering because it highlights how easily childbirth-related deaths can happen to anyone, regardless of socioeconomic background.

And it marked a catalytic event in Wirth’s life, eventually leading to the 2009 birth of Maternova Inc., a global health and technologies aggregator and supplier with a focus on saving lives during childbirth.

But the fledgling company took a while to get moving, as Wirth, CEO and co-founder, still worked a full-time job and the business model was still a work in progress. Enter Allyson E. Cote, vice president and co-founder, in 2012, who helped Wirth take Maternova from an idea to a full-functioning business.

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“We became much more focused on building a marketplace of health and innovation,” Wirth said.

The two women met through the online social-business platform LinkedIn, through which Wirth expressed a need for someone to help her out on the business side. Cote, who knew nothing about the company, felt moved by the company’s mission.

“I was taken aback by it,” Cote said. “It was kind of shocking when you find out what’s actually going on outside the borders of Rhode Island and sometimes even in Rhode Island.”

Indeed, the company estimates a woman loses her life every 90 seconds in childbirth-related deaths. The problem is especially stark in such countries as Niger, where one in seven women will die due to complications in childbirth. The deadly trend leaves about 1 million children motherless each year, according to Maternova.

Wirth and Cote found one another to be complementary because of their opposing skills sets. Wirth’s expertise in academia, policy and health melded well with Cote’s specialization in startups, sales and marketing.

“It wasn’t entirely clear right away how things would work, but it was clear that we worked well together,” Wirth said.

The duo started building the business model, asking for feedback from customers and entrenching themselves in the murkiness of international commerce laws. It became rapidly apparent the demand for some products was much broader than expected.

Thus, Maternova’s marketplace began to expand and international partnerships were formed. Requests for information about childbirth health and products started spilling in from clinics, ministries of health and large nongovernmental organizations from across the globe.

“It proves to us that we’re providing things that are very valuable,” Cote said. “It’s largely due to Meg’s expertise of knowing the subject matter at such a high caliber that people look through our website and the products, read our blog, and they know they’re going to get the most reliable, well-tested information.”

To date, Maternova estimates it’s helped 270,000 mothers and babies throughout the world. The company has worked with people in more than 40 countries, with some concentrated demand in Nigeria, Colombia, Brazil, Mexico and Kenya.

The company, with a skeleton staff and a handful of college interns, has aggregated a slew of products Wirth believes are the best and most useful in the industry. The products range from basic items, such as a solar headlamp and visor, to highly technical devices, like a nonpneumatic anti-shock garment for postpartum hemorrhage.

The garment wraps around a woman experiencing bleeding after delivery of a baby and presses down on the uterus to stop hemorrhage and reverse shock. It’s currently one of Maternova’s most popular items.

The company is also innovating and recently filed for a patent on its first proprietary product, which is a predictive indicator that helps mothers determine risk of hemorrhage.

“We don’t think what we’re doing is rocket science. We’re becoming an aggregator, and in doing so trying to break through a lot of red tape and connect governments and decision-makers to our site,” Wirth said. “There’s no one source where you can go for all that information and it’s been an enormous effort. These are not luxury items; they’re life-saving devices that the population wouldn’t have access to otherwise.” •

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