About Materna Health Solutions
About
A platform built on the gaps that almost killed someone we love.
Materna started as one family's frustration with the cracks between systems, and grew into a clinical platform built around the cracks that other platforms forget.
More than 80% of US pregnancy-related deaths are preventable (CDC Maternal Mortality Review Committees). Hispanic and Latina mothers face documented gaps in maternal care access and quality. And along the US-Mexico border, pregnancies routinely cross between two health systems and lose continuity at every handoff. Those are the gaps Materna is built around.
Most of the root causes share one mechanism: fragmented data. The provider on one side of the border doesn’t see the record on the other. The clinician seeing a postpartum patient doesn’t see the mood-screening result her midwife captured. The pediatrician at well-baby visit #6 doesn’t see the prenatal events that shape what to watch for.
Materna Health Solutions is what happens when you start from those gaps and build outward, voice-first because tired hands don’t type, bilingual because half of the people we serve think and dream in Spanish, predictive because algorithms can watch when no one else has the bandwidth.
Leadership
The people who hold this work.
Charlotte Richards, M.D., FACOG
Founder & CEO
OB-GYN, 40+ years in practice
Born and raised in Yuma County. CMO and OB-GYN Director at Regional Center for Border Health (San Luis Walk-in Clinic & Surgical Center). Assistant Clinical Professor at the University of Arizona College of Medicine. Former faculty at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital. Mount Sinai fellowship trained. Has delivered thousands of babies on both sides of the border and built the maternal-care infrastructure she now wants every family to have.
Mandana Semnani, M.D.
Cofounder
Family medicine, pediatric surgery, 7 languages
Karolinska Institutet trained. Pediatric Surgery Fellowship at Astrid Lindgren Children's Hospital and Children's Hospital Los Angeles. ABFM Board Certified. Assistant Professor at the University of Arizona. Former ACGME Program Director. Speaks English, Persian/Farsi, Spanish, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, and French. Owns Bio Family Clinic and Glamour Medical Spa in Yuma. Has performed thousands of surgeries and grounds Materna's clinical product in what real bilingual, multicultural care looks like.
Robert Brooks, M.D.
Chief Medical Advisor
OB-GYN, ABOG board certified
Former Chairman of OB/GYN at Swedish Medical Center. Residency at UT Southwestern, mentored by Dr. Jack Pritchard, the original author of Williams Obstetrics. M.D. from the University of Michigan. B.S. from UCLA. Lives 5 miles from the California border and works 1 mile from the international line. Holds Materna's clinical work to the standard of the textbook he was trained on.