Oli was invented by Sarah McDonald, a mechanical engineer with a phD in Medicine, who sought to resolve birth trauma for all mothers after the traumatic birth of her second child.
Over the past 30 years, obstetrics has had surprisingly little innovation, with most products designed to reduce litigation risks rather than improve outcomes. As a result, 2.4x more mothers are dying in the USA today compared to the 90s. Furthermore, Caesarians have been increasing at a rate of 4% pa, with 25% of births globally now following this process. In Australia and the USA, the Caesarian section rate is around one-third of all births, which is significantly higher than the 10-15% deemed acceptable by the WHO. Current monitoring technology has been directly linked to increasing rates of unnecessary intervention. In particular, a lack of insight into what is happening in the uterus may cause emergency C-sections to occur prematurely when a natural birth may be the least traumatic course of action. Furthermore, as there is currently no way of determining the time to spontaneous birth, up to 40% of women are induced. Risky pregnancies including emergency cesareans are shown as a risk factor for postpartum depression.
This is a huge burden affecting women in the child-rearing stage of their life and we were excited to find a product that put both mother and child at the centre of care.
Oli gives obstetricians and midwives data that has previously been unavailable and can predict the time to birth, detect hemorrhages (the leading cause of maternal death) and a range of other maladies with enough time for medical practitioners to respond safely (at least an hour before they occur). This solution is so novel that it has been put on a fast-track De Novo FDA process (due to its claims to have life-saving insights) and granted Breakthrough designation (a vote of confidence from the FDA).
“It is a sad fact that mothers today are monitored with the same measures as their grandmothers. Postpartum hemorrhage is currently diagnosed by estimating blood loss after it has occurred by which point it is an emergency with damage done. There is clear evidence that devices used in labour monitoring are not helping us to improve outcomes for mothers and babies. Further they are increasing rates of unnecessary interventions and restricting mothers’ comfort and movement during labour. Yet we continue to persist with these devices to best protect in cases of litigation should things go wrong. We need to do better for mothers, babies and clinicians.” Founder Sarah McDonald.
Sarah has shown incredible resilience completing a phD in Medicine, inventing the Oli device and starting the Baymatob business. Tara Croft, ex Nanosonics (multi-billion ASX listed medical device business) is now CEO of the business and focusing on rolling out clinical trials to ensure Oli can be distributed to every woman choosing to enter motherhood.
“This capital raise represents an important stage of Baymatob’s growth, providing sufficient funds to complete our Australian pilot study for PPH, advance toward a pivotal clinical study, while accelerating R&D in further capabilities. It is a strong validation to have the support of capital partners including Australian Unity during our next exciting phase of growth.” CEO Tara Croft.
Our investment in Baymatob is the first in our Equality theme and we are very excited to be backing a pioneering female founder and her team who are truly creating a better tomorrow.
Read the full story by Yolanda Redrup in the AFR here.
