n WOMEN IN HEALTH
I
n Brazil, nursing mothers feel comfortable taking out their
breasts, asking questions and working with physicians and
nurses to solve lactation problems.
This was a revelation to Anna Sadovnikova, an M.D.
and Ph.D. student in nutritional biology at UC Davis, who
interned in two dozen human donor milk banks in Brazil in
2014. She saw Brazilian mothers learn a slew of massage tech-
niques to combat issues like nipple pain, low milk production
and failure to latch.
It was a far cry from what Sadovnikova saw in the U.S.
Through her research in mammary gland biology and breast-
feeding medicine, she had heard from new moms distressed by
hospital staff who relied heavily on breast pumps. Though often
necessary, most pumps can’t mimic the complex movements of a
baby’s mouth, which massage tissue and combat common prob-
lems that arise for nursing mothers. It also makes for healthier
outcomes, Sadovnikova says, because hands-on techniques re-
sult in the milk’s increased fat content and volume. But, she adds,
the average health care professional in the U.S. doesn’t feel com-
fortable or confident enough to support moms who want to nurse.
“It’s that physical connection between the health care pro-
vider and the mother, and the mother and her own body, that’s
what I felt was missing in the U.S.,” she says.
In 2014, she cofounded LiquidGoldConcept, a breast health
and lactation education company. One of her first ideas was an
app called MomKit, designed to teach mothers various tech-
niques to alleviate, improve or prevent common breastfeeding
problems. As a founder, she was passionate about the impor-
tance of breastfeeding on infant and maternal health. She won
a few startup competitions to develop proof of concept. She was
in talks with breast pump companies about integrating their
brands with her educational material.
But she struggled to find investors. Every time she pitched
her breastfeeding education products, she found herself dealing
mostly with men. In 2015, during a workshop at UC Davis, she
pitched to about 50 mentors; only one of them was a woman. Over-
all, she says selling investors on an educational tool was difficult.
“Many venture capitalists were looking for ... a product that
I could sell directly to the mothers,” says Sadovnikova, who is
certified by the International Board of Lactation Consultant Ex-
aminers. “But I had to ask myself: Is this really a faulty business
model, or are most financial firms filled with dudes who don’t
understand women’s health issues?”
Ultimately, Sadovnikova took the feedback and expanded
LiquidGoldConcept beyond the app, but her experiences build
upon a long history of women’s health issues viewed large-
ly through the eyes of men. In 1985, the Public Health Service
Task Force on Women’s Health Issues concluded that the lack
of women’s health research had “compromised the quality of
health information available to women as well as the health
care they receive.” It wasn’t until 1993 that the Food and Drug
Administration even began allowing women to be included in
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trials for new drugs. The arena of women’s health is long over-
due for a nuanced perspective.
Throughout the Sacramento region, both the public and
private sectors are making moves to rethink approaches to
women’s health. Entrepreneurs, public officials and health care
specialists have made moves to expand and diversify their ap-
proach to maternal health and infant health, with targeted ef-
forts to support women of color, women with low incomes and
other groups that have gone under the radar for too long.
THE RISE OF FEMTECH
Sadovnikova has since begun selling Lactation Simulation
Models through LiquidGoldConcept. The simulators are worn
like a vest, giving mothers the opportunity to experience com-
mon breastfeeding issues and learn various lactation skills. Her
buyers are hospitals, nursing schools and community support
groups like the Women, Infants, and Children program. Now
angel investors and venture capitalists make offers, but she
would rather maintain control of the business.
“Sometimes it pays to go a little slower and bootstrap,” says
Sadovnikova, who now has a 5-month-old son. “Every decision
about spending money is that much more vetted by the team.
Every dollar becomes so much more valuable. It’s taken a very
long time, but we’re becoming a credible, trusted resource in the
breastfeeding community.”
With market potential estimated to hit $50 billion by 2025,
female technology (“femtech”) focused on the health and
well-being of women has been booming in recent years, fore-
shadowing the future of health care that isn’t so male-centric.
Products include fertility solutions, period-tracking apps and
smart breast pumps.
This surging market brings overdue attention to women’s
health, which has been historically underfunded and underval-
ued — a long-standing gender bias that advocates of women’s
health attribute to investors being predominantly men who
don’t take women’s issues seriously. Just 7 percent of venture
capitalists at the top 100 firms are women, according to a 2016
CrunchBase Women in Venture report. For early-stage ven-
tures, female founders raised an average of $77 for every $100
a male-founded team raised since 2010, TechCrunch reported.
Sacramento native Dr. Neil Ray is working to make inroads
in hospitals with his femtech product: a sensor that tells physi-
cians if a baby is struggling in the womb during labor. He says
the idea for his Mountain View-based medical device startup,
Raydiant Oximetry, came from “professional dissatisfaction”
with how women were being cared for during childbirth.
“I saw this firsthand as a physician and as a new parent,”
says Ray, a pediatric anesthesiologist. “We are using a technolo-
gy to monitor babies that’s 50 years old.”
When a woman goes into childbirth, there is a brief moment
during which the baby doesn’t receive oxygen. In 99 percent of
cases, it’s a benign event, akin to holding the breath. But some