How AI, Innovation and Equity Are Reshaping Maternal Health

AI is rapidly finding its way into almost every industry, from finance to fitness. And while healthcare is no exception, I believe AI holds incredible potential to improve outcomes and close the gaps in maternal care- if, and only if, it’s integrated safely and supported by evidence-based practice.

If you’ve been following digital health innovation, you’ve likely noticed the rise of AI-powered maternal health apps offering personalised guidance, early risk detection, and remote monitoring. This is a huge step in the right direction when it’s integrated safely and supported by strong, evidence-based practice.

To truly deliver preventative and personalised healthcare for mothers, we need to engage women much earlier, ideally at the preconception stage. That’s when we can begin collecting meaningful data on key biometrics and behaviours to build a complete picture of maternal health before pregnancy even begins. During my years in nursing and still today, I’ve seen how fragmented our system remains. Medical records rarely connect across services, and vital information is often scattered across multiple platforms. This fragmentation not only creates opportunities for things to be missed but also prevents us from gathering consistent, longitudinal data across preconception, pregnancy, and postpartum.

So, how might AI transform the way we identify early signs of maternal health conditions like prenatal and postnatal depression?

AI is no longer confined to clinical settings, it’s beginning to show real promise in detecting subtle changes in sleep, mood, and recovery long before symptoms escalate. Just as Oura and similar wearables track biometrics for sleep and readiness, imagine a world where every mother receives personalised healthcare insights and supportive prompts tailored to her unique rhythm, before a health condition takes hold.

This kind of preventative technology could be a game-changer. The Women’s Health Strategy and NHS Digital Transformation Plan have both acknowledged the urgent need for digitised, preventative models of care to improve maternal outcomes and reduce costs. Yet despite the UK government spending over £1.5 billion annually on maternal mental health, the problem persists, and in some areas, continues to worsen.

The truth is, early detection requires more than funding; it demands a shift in approach. By integrating AI-powered insights at the preconception and early pregnancy stages, we can start to identify risks, personalise interventions, and provide consistent, compassionate support throughout the entire maternal journey.

At Matresa, we recognise that continuity of care is the missing link. Mothers deserve connected, end-to-end support, from preconception through pregnancy and into the early years of their child’s life. By closing the gaps between fragmented systems and harnessing intelligent, evidence-based technology, Matresa is redefining what preventative and personalised care looks like for mothers. Because when we care for the mother continuously, we strengthen the foundation for every family’s health.

Beyond the growing clinical and emotional need lies a significant, untapped market opportunity. The global women’s digital health sector is projected to grow from $2.59 billion in 2023 to $9.53 billion by 2030 (a CAGR of over 20%), while the broader maternal health market is set to reach $28 billion by 2029. The maternal mental health segment alone is forecast to expand at an exceptional 28.5% CAGR, reflecting both the scale of unmet need and the rising demand for innovative, data-led solutions.

NICE opens its doors for digital health innovation📰

This October, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has expanded its evaluation framework to fast-track the approval of digital and AI health tools, a move that could significantly accelerate how innovation reaches patients and practitioners within the NHS.

👉 Why it matters:
For UK-based innovators, especially in maternal and women’s health, this marks a pivotal shift. Despite the growing demand for digital, preventative healthcare, the NHS has long been known for its complex, slow, and fragmented adoption processes. Integrating new technology into legacy systems has traditionally been an uphill battle, even for evidence-based, patient-centred solutions. This new NICE framework, however, represents a massive step forward. It aims to streamline evaluation, making it easier for validated digital tools to be assessed for clinical effectiveness, cost-efficiency, and safety, and crucially, to be adopted more quickly across NHS settings.

For innovators like myself, this opens the door to real collaboration. It means solutions like Matresa, built with GDPR-compliant data protection and measurable health outcomes in mind, could one day integrate seamlessly with NHS maternity pathways, providing mothers with continuous, personalised care that bridges the gap between clinical and lifestyle support.

If implemented well, this shift could help the NHS meet its own Women’s Health Strategy goals faster, delivering not just reactive treatment, but proactive, data-driven maternal care that improves outcomes and reduces costs.

🦋 Closing the gaps: From fragmentation to Continuity of Care

As AI becomes increasingly integrated into healthcare, it holds enormous potential to bridge long-standing inequalities in maternal health, but only if it’s designed with inclusion, diversity, and representation at its core.

Recent research continues to highlight stark disparities in maternal outcomes, particularly among women from ethnic minority backgrounds, lower-income households, and rural communities. Digital tools and AI-powered solutions are often presented as the answer, offering scalable, personalised support at a lower cost. Yet if these systems are trained on biased or incomplete data, they risk replicating the same inequalities that already exist in traditional care.

👉 Why it matters:
When we design maternal-health technology, AI must be guided by empathy, ethics, and inclusivity. Accessibility, cultural relevance, and simplicity can’t be bolted on later; they have to shape the foundation.

AI can be a force for equity if it’s used to:

This is why, when developing AI-driven maternal health solutions, careful consideration must be given to the choice of large language model (LLM) and data sources used. At Matresa, we believe this process must be approached thoughtfully and transparently, with a commitment to building our own tailored model over time. Our goal is to train AI that truly understands the maternal journey, grounded in verified, inclusive, and evidence-based data.

The right guardrails must be in place from the start to protect user safety, data integrity, and trust, ensuring our AI avoids misinformation, bias, and the kinds of “hallucinations” that could cause confusion or harm.

Having worked as a nurse and women’s health specialist, I’ve seen how fragmented systems fail those who are already hardest to reach. But with the right design and the right data, AI can connect the dots, ensuring no mother slips through the cracks because of where she lives, what language she speaks, or how much support she can access.

At Matresa, our vision is to harness AI ethically and inclusively to provide continuity of care that every mother can access, from preconception through the first four years of her child’s life. By building diverse data foundations and embedding safety and ethics into every layer of our technology, we’re ensuring that AI in maternal health doesn’t just serve the many, it serves every mother. Because real innovation isn’t about faster algorithms, it’s about fairer outcomes and safer, smarter care.

Our fundraise officially opens on 3rd November, and we’re proud to already have a lead investor committed. If you believe in creating a future where equitable, preventative maternal healthcare is the norm, not the exception, I’d love to speak with you.

👉 Book a call with me here and join us as we build something truly special and impactful.

Maternal health isn’t just a healthcare issue, it’s everyone’s responsibility. From policymakers and healthcare providers to employers and technology companies, we all play a part in shaping a system that truly supports mothers. The current challenges are not isolated, they’re systemic, woven into how society values women’s health, how workplaces structure support, and how technology is designed and deployed.

Meaningful change will only come when we start working together — aligning healthcare, innovation, and corporate policy around the shared goal of empowering and protecting mothers.

Mari-Carmen

Founder of Matresa- Building equitable, preventive maternal healthcare for all.