[M]otherboard birth was launched with the goal to improve maternity care and reduce disparity through education, collaboration, and communication between parents and their care teams. The United States ranks dead last in the developed world in terms of maternal mortality. [M]otherboard’s platform contains succinct, evidence-based information surrounding common choices and procedures during the childbirth experience. Users will then be able to create a personalized [M]otherboard—a graphics based, one-page sheet of their top 15 birth preferences to share with their care team.
Parents tend to be woefully unprepared for birth because it is hard to find easy-to-read, evidence-based, non-judgmental education that lays out birth options in a non-biased way. Furthermore, how parents communicate their preferences (birth plans) are poorly received by care teams because they are deemed too rigid, too demanding, and unrealistic. Parents often feel frustrated and unheard.
[M]otherboard has created 70 evidence-based topics surrounding pregnancy, labor, birth, cesarean birth, the immediate postpartum, and common infant medications. This information flows from general to more specific details. Parents can decide when they’re “full” and ready to make decisions on that topic. Each section includes a benefits/risks section, as well as resources and other links. The resulting output is a beautiful and concise [M]otherboard.
“Motherboard Birth helps you simply create a visually appealing birth plan with tons of useful information about all of the options a pregnant person has for their birth, baby, and postpartum. The website is beautiful and has so many wonderful nuggets of information available. I highly recommend this site for easily building your birth plan.”
--Jessica Wilson, Birth Doula and Manager at Full Eclipse Birth Services
In addition, [M]otherboard offers Affiliate and Partner programs focusing on supporting birth workers and other health professionals. Tools include client memberships, professional collaboration, educational material, business promotion, and more.
Amy Haderer has been working on bringing [M]otherboard birth to the world since 2014. Her goal has always been to improve the birth experience for all birthing persons—regardless of race, identity, or income. To do this, [M]otherborad will improve the birth experience for providers and parents alike through use of its platform. [M]otherboard birth is going to create stronger, more bonded families and that is the foundation of a compassionate society. For more information visit motherboardbirth.com.
Sample Motherboard
Collaborate with your whole Team
Anywhere, on any device
[M]otherboard App: A web-based application that helps parents create a concise, visual, easy to read birth plan. Available to download on any device.
Childbirth Education for Educators: Launching early 2020, our modules provide slideshows, handouts, educator guides, illustrations, and visuals for dynamic, diverse, trauma-informed childbirth classes.
Childbirth Education for Parents: Launching 2020, we will have a series of online courses dedicated to helping parents understand just what they need to know to prepare for their pregnancy, birth, and postpartum.
iDecide - Prototyped and ready to pilot, iDecide is a clickthrough informed choice module that care providers can use at the bedside. We help parents navigate their birth journey and streamline time for care providers by standardizing education.
A detailed breakdown of Parent options and pricing can be found here.
A detailed breakdown of Professional memberships can be found here.
EXECUTIVE TEAM
Amy Haderer
Founder and CEO
Amy is a childbirth assistant (doula), artist, birth activist, mother of six, and founder of Motherboard Birth. Ever since the birth of her first daughter, Amy has been passionate about guiding families through the challenging landscape of their birth experience.
For over a decade, Amy has provided hands-on support to hundreds of families during the childbearing year. Amy saw a need for better education and better communication between parents and their care team. She is passionate about helping parents understand their options and make decisions based on the best available information.
Amy is passionate about reducing disparities in maternal health outcomes by building tools for parents, tools for providers, and a platform to connect the two.
The US is a maternal health system in crisis:
- One out of three babies are born by cesarean (2-3x what the World Health Organization recommends)
- One out of three women describing their births as "traumatic"
- Maternal mortality rates are the worst of the developed world and are climbing (3-4x higher for women of color)
Amy's goal may seem audacious, but Motherboard's high tech/high touch platform is a timely tool as the US examines the complexity of maternal health.
Skyler Shaw
Chief Technology Officer
Skyler Shaw is a software developer, professional skydiver, pilot, and avid traveler who loves solving interesting problems through architecting software solutions and writing clean code. After leaving the aerospace industry due to a passion for startup culture five years ago, he has worked on projects ranging in size from proof of concepts to applications with tens of millions of daily active users at Intercom. He is currently working with Motherboard Birth as a fractional CTO.
Jaemi Graham
Business Operations Manager
As Business Strategist and Certified Online Business Manager (OBM), Jaemi helps the team get things done so they can step out of the busy work and into their genius as change-makers and industry leaders. Jaemi is involved in the day-to-day running and managing of [M]otherboard, helping us with bigger picture and long-term planning.
Jaemi’s goal is to help everyone on the team work together efficiently, while managing complex projects, tracking initiatives and campaigns, and bringing in additional help where needed.
Paul Fisher
Chief Financial Officer
In his 12 years as a successful financial analyst, Paul has had extensive experience in creating financial models to help companies make smart decisions on where to invest their money. He focuses on spearheading business case analysis on products and market segments. Paul excels at collecting and organizing data from multiple sources across an organization, analyzing it, and presenting it in an accurate, concise, and clear manner.
Like Amy, Paul has a passion for improving birth experiences for all. The vaginal breech birth of his first son gave him firsthand experience of the chaos born out of miscommunication and lack of education about the birth process. The births of his other kids showed him how amazing it is when the birth team works together. He is honored to help [M]otherboard launch and become a successful, world changing business.
Andy Drogo
Founder and Chief Design Officer
Andy started his career in Boston as a Project Manager for a Software as a Service (SaaS) company. This experience gave him critical skills needed to manage Cross Functional Teams with Executive level visibility. During this work Andy often became frustrated with product usability and design. He used this as an opportunity to work with the Product Management team and set the foundation for his full-time move into product design.
In 2009 Andy jumped headfirst into product management and design for the first time. He had the incredible privilege of working with a small team to bring a brand-new product to market. On this team he worked as the Product Designer, Product Manager, and SCRUM Master. While an incredible challenge, they were successful in bringing a new product to market and helping to fuel his company’s launch to a successful IPO.
In 2011 the company opened a new office space that focused on selling and servicing Andy’s products. During this time he officially moved to a full time User Experience Designer role that allowed him to take ownership of all products at his company.
2013 was the year Andy and Jen had their first daughter. Andy created the first [M]otherboard, hoping it would help them communicate with staff and stand out from the crowd. The nurses were really excited about it when they checked in to the hospital. Jen was an absolute rockstar and Amy supported them through the process as their doula. Andy and Amy feel fortunate to have forged that initial connection and are excited to continue working together to improve both [M]otherboard and our maternity system.
In 2015 Andy moved back into an R&D role with an eye to the future. He is excited to be working on [M]otherboard and believe it has great ramifications in improving healthcare.
FAQ’s
TIMELINE
November 5, 2018
Parent content launched
.
January 1, 2019
Partner and Affiliate programs launched
.
June, 2019
Building and polishing the iDecide prototype
.
October, 2019
Childbirth Ed Modules are shaping up
.
January, 2020
Childbirth Ed Portal for educators launches
.
January, 2020
iDecide Pilots commence
CUSTOMERS AND SERVICES
Parents - Sign up for our app to create a Motherboard and collaborate with care team (price varies by use).
Birth Professionals - Partner with us to provide [M]otherboard to the families you serve and we feature you on our website, provide community and support, and give you access to some of our teaching tools.
Childbirth Educators - In the process of launching bright, beautiful, inclusive childbirth ed materials such as classroom slideshows, illustrations, videos, parent handouts, educator guides, and much more! Run your childbirth ed class straight from [M]otherboard’s platform. (Estimated launch 12.2019)
Providers – Welcome to iDecide, a clickthrough informed choice module that midwives and doctors can use at the bedside! Prototype completed 11.2019. Currently accepting applications for practices interested in piloting this new tool.
Hospitals – Future development will focus on ability to bring up a family's Motherboard (visual birth plan) when they check in during labor. Integrating iDecide and on the floor to help families make decisions.
Insurance Companies – Have your families have happier, healthier births by giving them access to iDecide and the [M]otherboard App.
Why can’t I choose more than 15 options for my [M]otherboard?
Studies have found that if parents have more than 15 options their satisfaction rates actually go down. Birth plans aren’t intended to be a laundry list contract of everything you want. They are meant to communicate your most important wishes. [M]otherboards get back to the heart of what birth “plans” were meant to be.
What kinds of things are developers building next?
We are building dashboards for providers and hospitals to be able to securely message their patients, add feedback to our content, and bring up a family's Motherboard at the hospital when they check in in labor. Provider buy-in is incredibly important to lasting, meaningful change.
press releases
January 1, 2019
Release of Partner and Affiliate Service
November 3, 2018
November 3, 2018
[M]otherborad Birth Launch Party
October 1, 2018
[M]otherboard Birth Beta Testing
June 15, 2018
Partnership with Firepoint Studios
December 4, 2019
Testimonials
“Motherboard Birth helps you simply create a visually appealing birth plan with tons of useful information about all of the options a pregnant person has for their birth, baby, and postpartum. The website is beautiful and has so many wonderful nuggets of information available. I highly recommend this site for easily building your birth plan.”
--Jessica Wilson, Birth Doula and Manager at Full Eclipse Birth Services
“As a Birth Professional, I highly recommend Motherboard Birth! This website is packed full of evidence-based information, and very user-friendly birth planning tools. I cannot recommend this product enough to expectant parents and birth professionals alike.”
--Emily Houghton, Birth and Postpartum Doula at Hoosier Doula Network
“Wow! This tool is fun to use and so gorgeous! I can't wait to recommend it to my clients and friends. I remember when Amy was talking about developing a visual birth plan, and she was so excited about this dream. It turned out even more gorgeous than I expected!”
--Jennifer Green, Certified Professional Midwife at Organic HomeBirth LLC
“Extremely excited to see Motherboard. It's an amazing, easy to use and informative way for parents to be to set up and explore the details of their birth. Amy has thought of everything, links to additional resource, information to ensure parents are well informed, visual birth preferences to download and pregnancy week by week information. I LOVE it and I can't wait to see parents to be using it and to be referring them to it. LOVE IT!!!”
--Gemma Wilson, Owner and Director at Birthability - Central Coast Childbirth Education
“I will be recommending Motherboard to all my future client's. Seriously, as a Childbirth Educator and Doula, if you absolutely cannot afford classes or support, use Motherboard. It goes over nearly everything I do in classes in great detail!”
--Kirsten Freeman, Owner and Doula at Three Little Birds Birth Services
“An amazing resource with great information. Very helpful for planning a birth and knowing your options. Great job Amy Haderer. Thank you!”
--Beth Brownstein, International Board Certified Lactation Consultant at Beth Brownstein Lactation Support Services
“I thoroughly enjoyed navigating this site and I truly believe that it'll be a great resource for my clients. I love how it offers evidence based information for individuals to gain a better idea of what their choices are and should be.”
--LaKisha McPike, Community Health Worker (CHW) at Family Care Health Centers
“Fabulous resource! Awesome work creating an easy to use birth plan generator that thinks of everything so you don’t have to.”
--Cindy Maynard, Doula
“I am so excited for Motherboard! This resource is an amazing, easy, informative way for parents-to-be to learn about their options and communicate them with all on their team. I got a chance to preview the site and it is beautiful <3 So much thought and effort has gone into this to present the information in an evidence-based, unbiased manner that empowers each person to be involved and informed in their care. I am so excited to use it myself and recommend it to my clients.”
--Kat Roberts, Childbirth Educator at GentleBirth and Doula
“I am so impressed by the site! I’m due in a few months and was so excited to try it out early enough to help with my birth plan. It was beautiful and easy to use! So much good info about topics I hadn’t even thought about yet. Thank you!”
--Bethany Jaeckle, Expectant Parent
“I am super excited about this project! As a doula, it is a powerful tool to help my clients in their self-education and decision making. The content is thorough, well researched and beautifully presented. Thank you Amy!”
--Sarah Emily Allen, Doula
IMAGES
![[M]otherboard Topic Laptop.png](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5af5b592266c072726a9acec/1575943542745-5S8TE0XJ9FB2R6I93QTB/%5BM%5Dotherboard+Topic+Laptop.png)
VIDEOS
