Design Project
2025
Reimagining postpartum care in nuclear families
In India's Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities, up to 80% of new mothers experience baby blues, yet fewer than 15% get access to midwife-led postpartum care. This project explored what a hybrid, tech-enabled support system could look like.
Overview
A care system built around the newborn, not the mother
Urban India has been shifting from joint families to nuclear households, and with that shift, the informal postpartum support mothers used to rely on, an experienced aunt, a grandmother, a full household sharing the load, has largely disappeared. Healthcare has not caught up. Postpartum checkups still center almost entirely on the baby.
The gap is measurable.
22%
New mothers experience postpartum depression
~80%
Experience baby blues
5 - 15%
Get access to dedicated postpartum care
The imbalance became the focus of this project: attention goes to the newborn, the mother's recovery goes unnoticed.
Challenge
New mothers in nuclear families, left to manage recovery alone
New mothers in Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities face fragmented support during a period that demands the opposite. Limited family involvement, inadequate mental health screening, and low awareness of midwifery care leave mothers exhausted and unsupported, at higher risk of postpartum depression despite being aware of their own mental state.
Interviews surfaced that recovery isn't individual, mothers do better when family shares the load, which nuclear households often lack. And depression symptoms surface within two weeks, while medical follow-ups happen far later, leaving no structured way to catch it early.
Three findings shaped what came next.
Solution
Five flows, each answering something from the research
Daily check-in - A mood picker with adaptive follow-ups. This is what closes the two-week gap between when symptoms actually surface and when a medical follow-up would otherwise catch them.
Immediate help - Tell your partner with zero explanation, call your midwife, a sixty-second breathing exercise, or Tele-MANAS, India's national helpline. The screening's most serious question routes here directly.
Midwife booking - Verified profiles with registration numbers and real pricing, evening slots labeled for people working office hours. Booked in under a minute, no call required.
Partner mode - Joins via a pairing code, sees mood and one suggested action/day. Written notes and screening answers stay private unless the mother shares them.
Key Decisions
What the research pointed to, and what got built because of it
Used a validated clinical tool instead of a generic wellness score. The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale replaced an invented check-in metric. The cost: a clinical instrument feels more serious than a casual app check-in, accepted because credibility mattered more than lightness.
Scoped exactly what a partner can and can't see. Partners see mood and one suggested action, not written notes or screening answers. The cost: less visibility than a fully open system, a limit chosen on purpose over the risk of oversight feeling like surveillance.
Left gamification out of the recovery tracker. No streaks, no scores. The cost: likely lower daily return-rate than a gamified version, accepted because guilt-driven engagement worked against the emotional goal.
Put midwife credentials in the booking flow itself. Registration numbers sit directly on each card, not one tap deeper. The cost: a denser card at a glance, accepted because trust needed to happen before the tap.
Impact
What feedback on an earlier version changed
An earlier prototype was shared informally for feedback, with real mothers reacting to it directly, and faculties and fellow UX designers reviewing it more critically. That round surfaced two things clearly. Gamification wasn't landing, testers said streaks and scores added pressure rather than helping them feel supported, which is what led to the redesign now in Section 4.
Separately, feedback reinforced that finding support after childbirth is a distinct, significant problem specifically in urban areas, confirming the project's core premise.
That feedback shaped the current prototype, built with Claude's help to move quickly between iterations while the actual design decisions, stayed with the me. This version hasn't been tested yet. That's the next step, seeing whether the redesigned approach actually works for mothers or not.
Reflection
What I realized after working on this project
Working on this project taught me something I didn't expect going in. Mothers give so much of themselves after childbirth and most people never really stop to notice the toll it takes and that includes the mothers themselves. Talking to them directly made me see that effort in a way I hadn't before.
I talked to a lot of different people while working on this project and every single one of them had something real to say and it reminded me how much you can learn just by asking and actually listening to what comes back.