7 Startups You Can Expect Help From When You're Expecting

Preparing for the birth of a child can be exciting, albeit also exhausting and often worrying for expecting mothers. Pregnant women deal with natural changes to their bodies and sometimes suffer from complications and deficiencies as a result.

From an app providing nutritional recommendations during pregnancy to an at-home ultrasound device, below are seven Israel-based startups trying to make pregnancy just a little easier.

Nuvo

Founded: 2007

Funding to date: $30 million

Based in: Tel Aviv

Nuvo Inc. develops a belt-like device that offers pregnant women non-invasive fetal and maternal monitoring from the comfort of their home. Called Invu, Nuvo’s monitoring belt measures certain indicators of fetal and maternal wellbeing using central and acoustic sensors, including fetal ‎movements, fetal heart rate, and maternal heart rate. Nuvo’s device is sold strictly to medical practitioners and offered to expecting mothers on loan by prescription. The patient receives information from the device directly to her phone and a more comprehensive report is sent to her physician. Nuvo’s business model is to charge insurers per report issued.

GynIsUs

Founded: 2016

Funding to date: bootstrapped

Based in: Tel Aviv

GynIsUs Ltd. develops wearable devices that help reduce and prevent possible pregnancy-related complications. Using artificial intelligence, the company’s technology aggregates patients' data, whether relating to the mother, such as preeclampsia, or relating to the fetus such as severe fetal growth restriction or macrosomia, and provides forecasts in real-time. By doing so, the company enables physicians to predict possible complications during pregnancy and offer personalized, preventive care, accordingly.

Nine Plus Life

Founded: 2017

Funding to date: undisclosed

Based in: Netanya

9 Plus Life Ltd. develops an app and mobile service that connects pregnant women with a doula. The app lets users chat with a doula around the clock as well as physical escort during and after the birth.

OB-Tools

Founded: 2003

Funding to date: undisclosed

Based in: Nesher

OB-Tools Ltd. develops technology designed to monitor uterine contractions. The company’s non-invasive device is designed to help maternal-fetal medicine specialists and obstetricians identify, measure, and evaluate uterine contractions and fetal heart rates throughout pregnancy and labor. Using a sensor placed on the pregnant woman’s abdomen, the company’s TrueLabor System helps doctors and nurses distinguish between true and false labor signs. The company’s fetal heart rate monitoring unit received U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval in 2015.

PregnanTech

Founded: 2017

Funding to date: undisclosed

Based in: Tel Aviv

PregnanTech Ltd. develops a small, disposable device designed to maintain the natural resistance of the cervix in order to prevent preterm birth. Called Lioness, it is a disposable silicone device placed in the vagina and secured high around the uterine cervix. The device behaves like a shock absorber, allowing transient shortening and dilation of the cervix during contractions and restoring the cervix to its initial state when contractions subside. The device is inserted by a physician during an outpatient visit and removed at term.

PulseNmore

Founded: 2014

Funding to date: undisclosed

Based in: Omer

PulseNmore Ltd. develops a handheld ultrasound device that allows pregnant women to perform ultrasound tests on their unborn babies at home. The device syncs with the mother’s smartphone, displaying the images on the screen, and sends them to her healthcare provider for analysis.

Nutrino

Founded: 2011

Funding to date: $10 million

Based in: Tel Aviv

Nutrino Inc.’s software collects data on users' health and eating habits, creating a personal nutritional profile and offering personalized dietary recommendations. In 2015, Nutrino and IBM launched an IBM Watson-powered app designed to provide pregnancy nutrition recommendations for expecting mothers.