Can AI help reverse the rise in maternal mortality?

Access to reliable and equitable healthcare is often a challenge for expectant mothers around the globe, a trend only made worse by rising maternal mortality rates in the wake of the pandemic. Could adding AI to prenatal medicine be the solution they need? 

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), roughly 287,000 women died during and following their pregnancy in 2020 due to preventable causes — that's approximately 800 deaths every day. In addition, birth defects affect one in 331 babies born in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 50% of those cases, the defects went undetected by an ultrasound.

This is where technology companies can — and should — step in, according to Clément Moreau, talent acquisition manager at Paris-based healthtech company Sonio. 

Read more: Maternal mortality rate in the U.S. soared 40% in 2021

"The tech and startup field is not about disrupting — it's really about support and amping up what's already in place," he says. "In France, you can see the budget in maternal healthcare decreasing in hospitals. As technology companies, we can really play a role in providing access to healthcare." 

Sonio uses artificial intelligence to better support practitioners as they monitor pregnancies, from screenings to the potential diagnosis of a defect or condition. Typically, doctors and specialists in fetal and prenatal medicine are often presented with hundreds of indicators on an ultrasound, according to Moreau, which can make the task of identifying a single defect difficult.

"It's a really tough job," he says. "You have to take 20 to 100 pictures of the fetus through the mother's skin. It's a very difficult exercise and you don't always have a lot of help or a lot to support." 

Sonio's tools can help hospitals and clinics better manage simple tasks including patient reminders and post-appointment reporting, as well as patient access to ultrasound photos. But the potentially life-saving part of the technology can assist and guide practitioners during a screening, using artificial intelligence to identify up to 250 syndromes and 700 hundred potential anomalies they may not otherwise have noticed. In the U.S., Sonio's product is still awaiting FDA approval, but is currently being used in many large hospitals and medical institutions around France with the hopes of expanding to other countries. 

Read more: Why women's health benefits will be a priority in 2023

"We want to help patients get quality assurance on each of their exams and make sure that these anomalies are not missed," Moreau says. "By helping the practitioner perform the exam more easily and develop an easier routine, it's directly improving the outcome for the patient." 

The maternal mortality rate in the U.S. has been on the rise since 2000, according to the WHO. The situation became more dire in the face of the COVID-19 as health systems across the world were crushed under the weight of the virus and inadvertently limited women's access to healthcare in many cases. But the pandemic also created an opportunity for technology to make workplaces more equitable for everyone, according to Moreau, and the same should apply to hospitals and clinics. 

"There are so many inequalities in access to healthcare for people of color for women," he says. "Technology can really play a big role in fixing this, and we as companies have to make sure that this technology is as inclusive as it can be."