Brighton student’s award-winning health app to improve midwifery care for people of colour

Ruby Jackson got the idea for the app while on an international placement trip to Ghana as part of her Midwifery degree at the University of Brighton.

Ruby’s app, called ‘Melanatal’, is an educational tool designed to equip birthing people and clinicians with better knowledge of the signs and symptoms of a range of maternal and neonatal conditions on black and brown skin including jaundice, pre-eclampsia, and mastitis.

She hopes greater understanding and awareness of the differences in clinical presentation of these conditions will help reduce race-based health inequalities. Black and brown women in the UK are nearly four times more likely to die in pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum compared with white women, and black babies have the highest rate of both stillbirth and neonatal death.

Ruby Jackson

Through this innovative app, Ruby secured a place on the NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Programme which led to the opportunity to pitch her idea in a global digital health challenge delivered by Amazon Web Services (AWS) Healthcare, Cogniss and The Validitron. In June, she was named one of two winners of the competition, earning 12-months of mentorship and business support to bring the app to life.

Ruby who is due to graduate in the winter, will be running a pilot this year with the hope of fully operationalising the app and working with NHS trusts to adopt and integrate it into their services.

Ruby said: “It was during my placement in Ghana that I first saw how jaundice presented on a baby with dark skin, and I realised I had never seen anything like that. As I reflected on this as my practice, I thought of Melanatal as a means of bridging the existing knowledge gap.

“This app will help provide the much-needed information for black and brown women who are nearly four times more likely to die in pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum in comparison to white women. Through Melanatal, clinicians can get better knowledge to care for black babies who have the highest rate of both stillbirth and neonatal death.”

Lucy Dentice, National Programme Manager of the NHS Clinical Entrepreneurs Programme said: “Ruby’s journey with Melanatal is truly inspiring. Her innovative approach, shaped by her experiences in Ghana, highlights her unwavering commitment to addressing health inequalities for black and brown communities. It has been a privilege to support her through the NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Programme, and I am excited to see the positive impact her app will have on maternal and neonatal care.”

Before getting on the midwifery programme at University of Brighton, Ruby had worked in health and social care sector, caring for people receiving palliative treatment.

Michelle Tant, Senior Lecturer at the University of Brighton’s School of Education, Sports and Health Science, said: "Supporting Ruby through this project has been a joy and a privilege. Throughout this project, she has demonstrated remarkable innovation in her approach to addressing racism and health inequalities.

“She is an inspiration to both the midwifery teaching team and the student body, and I am excited to see where her path next leads.”