Dr. Samantha Lattof often kicks off presentations of her project, Maila Health, with the question “Have you ever had food poisoning?” During her first pregnancy, Dr. Lattof, who was born and raised in the US and now lives in Berlin, says she felt like she was trying to expel spoiled food from her body every day. She was suffering from hyperemesis gravidarum. Roughly one in a hundred women endure this particularly severe type of nausea and excessive vomiting during pregnancy. The illness results in weight loss and dehydration for the pregnant person, which can also put the baby at risk. Patients are usually treated in hospital with intravenous fluids, vitamins, and electrolytes.

“I only received the correct diagnosis and proper care in the final trimester of my pregnancy – too late for an effective therapeutic intervention,” says Dr. Lattof. It took her eighteen months to fully recover. This likely could have been avoided if the illness had been diagnosed and treated at an early stage.

The health science researcher has spent the last twelve years investigating maternal healthcare with a focus on pregnancy and the postpartum period. Taking inspiration from her own experiences in Germany, she identified several problems. Information tended to only be available in German, and she struggled to make herself understood in conversations with her doctor due to the language barrier. Sometimes her healthcare providers weren’t up to speed with the latest research and misdiagnosed her symptoms. Not only that, but doctors and midwives are often so overwhelmed that they barely have time to conduct comprehensive consultations with their patients.

She soon learned that she wasn’t the only one – many people she knew had had similar experiences. Dr. Lattof says that going through this type of experience is totally unnecessary in a world where more information than ever before is available digitally.

Keeping Tabs on Your Pregnancy

Together with software engineer Philip Meier, Dr. Lattof decided to found an intelligent, evidence-based platform for personalized care during pregnancy and the postpartum period. Using the app, users can keep a diary, enter data or link to tracking devices, and access health information – in other words, keep tabs on all aspects of their pregnancy so that they can feel empowered and informed when talking to healthcare professionals.

Since September 2021, Maila Health – with the first name “Maila” meaning “wished for child,” “strength in battle,” and “hope” – has received funding at Freie Universität Berlin through the EXIST Business Start-up Grant from the German Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy and the European Social Fund.

Assessing the Risk of Complications

The platform reflects the most up-to-date research. “70 percent of all pregnant people suffer from at least one complication, such as gestational diabetes, high blood pressure, or hyperemesis gravidarum. This can also impact the child’s health and lead to expensive treatment costs,” says Dr. Lattof. Ninety-four percent of mothers experience at least one complication after giving birth.

The Maila Health app can help pregnant people to assess their risk of certain complications. Drawing from their personal health data, such as their blood pressure values, the pregnant person receives personalized information about potential complications related to blood pressure, for example.

Not just the content, but also the display and format will be customized to each individual based on factors like native language, age, location, and education level to ensure that the user understands the information they receive. The software works behind the scenes with machine learning and artificial intelligence in order to personalize the format and content.

An App by Prescription

Dr. Lattof says that users themselves determine how much data they share. “We uphold high standards when it comes to data protection and data security, as unlike many popular lifestyle apps for pregnant people, we don’t finance our app by selling user data.”

Instead, Maila Health will be an “app on prescription,” prescribed by a doctor or paid for by the patient’s statutory health insurance. In order to achieve this status, the team will have to undergo the comprehensive review procedure for Digital Health Applications (Di-GA) conducted by the German Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices. The service provider has to prove with the aid of research studies that their digital products have a positive effect on patients’ healthcare, or in other words, have the same or better impact and are more cost-effective than existing healthcare services.

“I’m confident that we’ll pass the test,” says Meier. If everything goes to plan, the app will be available by 2023. However, pregnant people will hopefully be able to use the app before then, as from the middle of next year some content will be made available for free, while other features can be accessed through a subscription. The team wants to be able to offer the app in the US and other European countries alongside the German market.

Grateful for the Support

Dr. Lattof says that founding a business means having to work on lots of tasks at the same time. The team, which also includes the data scientist Catarina Pires and the UI/UX designer Stephanie Bell, is currently focusing on developing the minimum viable product (MVP). “But at the same time we are already looking for financing for the time after the EXIST grant funding period has ended.”

During this stressful stage, Dr. Lattof is particularly grateful for the support her team has received at the Startup Villa of Freie Universität Berlin and from their two faculty mentors, professor of business administration Dr. Martin Gersch and professor of medical bioinformatics Dr. Tim Conrad. Receiving support from the start-up community can sometimes end up saving the entire venture: “Other founders told us that you have to get in touch with auditing companies like TÜV Süd a year in advance just to get an appointment. I think it’s safe to say that we’re really grateful for this tip!”

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This article originally appeared in German on December 13, 2021, in campus.leben, the online magazine of Freie Universität Berlin.