Simrah Mahmood

Mama Care: Postpartum Care for Immigrant Women

Mama Care is a digital service app that gives immigrant women a social platform and opportunity to create awareness on Postpartum struggles with public or personal support systems, practice community building and provide accessible products and resources based on professional, cultural and relevant preferences.My thesis project started off by identifying design opportunity gaps in postnatal women, what postpartum is, who is involved and patterns of emotional and physical recovery struggles found in postpartum women in the west. I dove into in depth research which included interviews comparing immigrant and non immigrant experiences, empathy maps, surveys about postpartum knowledge, user journey maps and then to sum it all up a mind map to compare reoccurring issues and find missing gaps. I identified the two most common problems in women's postpartum experiences which are immigrant women who give birth in the west have to depend on their partners for the community provided support they once got from family and friends back home. They are unable to have the postpartum experience that caters community support systems as their recovery aid and lastly there is a lack of education and awareness in what mothers go through after birth. I translated my stakeholder's needs into a design framework...My project MUST create a network of similar cultures who can connect and support each other. Project SHOULD give immigrant women an opportunity to express their postpartum experiences.And COULD be integrated into a hospital system and introduce the app before women give birth.

“I initially was not meant to take the thesis course. The summer before my final year started, I found myself around a group of recent and experienced immigrant mothers who were telling their postpartum stories. I was shocked at to what extent they hid their struggles and asked... why isn't anyone doing anything about this? It hit me that I as an industrial designer have the perfect platform to bring awareness to the emotional and physical strains immigrant women go through after birth. The months of research, interviews and iterations that took place to bring my postpartum care app to life was so worth it! ”