IrishAngels member Patrick Schneidau shares his thoughts on Babyscripts, one of the newest companies in the IrishAngels portfolio. As the IrishAngels deal lead, Patrick chronicles what stood out to him about the investment and how he feels the company will contribute to the world of maternal care.

As the father of four young kids, I still remember the excitement I felt each time that my wife and I found out she was pregnant. I remember the details of my wife’s first pregnancy the most, probably because it was all so new to me at the time. The excitement of telling your family and friends, the preparations for the baby’s arrival, and the doctor’s office visits where you hear the heartbeats for the first time were all incredible experiences.

But I also remember the waiting. Waiting for my wife’s doctor, sometimes for hours, as she attended to mothers with at-risk pregnancies and deliveries. Each of my wife’s pregnancies have been relatively routine, and we have been blessed with healthy, happy kids. With subsequent pregnancies, I attended my wife’s prenatal appointments less often, opting for the ones where we could see the detailed ultrasounds. While pregnancy is truly a miracle of life, for our family it was also a predictable routine that entailed many visits, commutes back and forth to the doctor’s office, and a lot of waiting, all while my wife was already uncomfortable.

When I first discovered Babyscripts, it revealed how that experience could have been streamlined.

 

Babyscripts provides an individualized, virtual care model for women who do not have at-risk pregnancies. Women are enrolled on the platform by their doctor and download a Babyscripts mobile app to their personal device. The mobile app is a “to-do list” that guides patients through each gestational period with practice-specific, doctor-approved tasks related to nutrition, exercise, and other behaviors that support a healthy pregnancy.

When I reflect on how our family’s experience would have dramatically shifted with Babyscripts, the difference is clear. We were blessed with four routine pregnancies, and the Babyscripts care model could have saved us the experience of unnecessary doctor’s appointments and the time that entailed. From a father’s perspective, I wanted to be meaningfully involved with each pregnancy, and Babyscripts would have enabled us to have more insight into the progression of appointments and ensured I was present for impactful visits, like viewing the ultrasound and learning the baby’s sex.

There were several reasons Babyscripts also caught my eye as an investor:

• The team showed early traction with some premiere health systems. As an investor, I am always looking for product-market fit, and the early successes with health systems, as well as additional potential for roll-outs, were promising.
• When examining this from a consumer lens, there were also indications that Babyscripts had the potential to “go viral.” For those routine pregnancies, especially for multi-time mothers, I could envision this app being recommended from mom to mom, halving the time that mothers spend in the doctor’s office waiting room.
• While I’m not an expert in the medical space, if payment for a pregnancy is the same no matter the intermediary steps, it is a powerful incentive for doctors and health systems to participate in a program like Babyscripts. I could see how this could reduce patient cost 30–50% over time.

Babyscripts promises to better engage with a provider’s pregnancy population between visits, and ultimately, automate low-risk pregnancy care in order to re-engineer how a provider spends their time. With a higher level of engagement and less of the waiting that so characterized our family’s pregnancies, I am confident that Babyscripts has the tools to change the face of pregnancy care.

Patrick Schneidau is a member of IrishAngels and also serves on its Board of Directors. He is the former Chief Marketing Officer for PROS, and currently presides as the Managing General Partner of Schneidau Capital in Houston, TX.

Blog Source: Medium, Irish Angels