Apple newsroom’s latest feature is all about an iOS app focused on shrinking the inequalities surrounding pregnancy and infant loss. Poppy Seed Health advocates to help birthing people through postpartum care. It provides 24/7 access to doulas, midwives, and nurses regarding birthing, postpartum, pregnancy, and infant loss support.
It started from a personal experience
Simmone Taitt founded Poppy Seed Health after experiencing multiple pregnancy losses of her own. After each circumstance, she found herself going to the internet for support.
Taitt eventually stumbled upon a doula messaging board which she fondly remembers as a “virtual bear hug”. This led her to become a doula herself and inspired her to start Poppy Seed Health.
“Everything I’ve done personally as a doula, between my own lived experiences and what I experience with my own clients, informs Poppy, from the way that we’ve built the technology, to the look and feel of the app.”
Simone Taitt, Poppy Seed Health’s founder and CEO
After launching last year, Poppy focuses on being a safe space for birthing people to access accurate information and support at any stage of their pregnancy. The app prides itself on its diversity, as half of its users identify as BIPOC and/or LGBTQIA+.
The app has a matching algorithm that pairs users with the right care at the right stage of their journey. In addition, it will soon match users with providers based on race, ethnicity, language, and LGBTQIA+ identification preferences.
Poppy Seed Health is a $29 monthly subscription and free to anyone receiving Medicaid. Currently, 30% of its users are on Medicaid and 75% use the app’s free information services.
“I went from getting bit by the startup bug and loving technology, to truly building it myself,” Taitt says. “And understanding that technology is so much bigger than just the people who are actually building it. It’s the entire ecosystem coming together to make technology accessible.”
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