Reducing Maternal Stress During Childbirth
Designing a system to support physical and digital
advocacy for unaccompanied mothers during childbirth.
Timeline
Oct-Dec 2025
Platform
Digital App
Team
Medical Delivery Device
Kerime Siller | Product Design
THE QUESTION
How might we strengthen maternal education
while also physically supporting unaccompanied
mothers during labor?
I Set 3 Core Goals:
Empower mothers to
self-advocate
Design an inviting
birthing bed
Lower labor times by
reducing maternal stress
Based on the findings I developed 3 empathy maps, landscape analysis and a lean canvas.
I created 3 empathy maps informed by live birthing videos.
DISCOVERY
I conducted a literary analysis, and surveyed 15+
birthing videos to inform my project roadmap.
Understanding the mental and physical
affect giving birth has on a mother through
empathy maps.
"I knew that I simply had to trust my body"
-54 year old
Unaccompanied mothers face high stress levels that lead to longe labor times and can cause adverse affects to the mother and child after birth.
I then began my ideation process.
IDEATION
I walked through the labor process with an extreme user
and identified 3 major pain points.
AT A GLANCE
Redesigning the birthing bed and Oura Ring
App to support all mothers during childbirth.
Feeling alone causes intense
mental strain.
The stress of facing vulnerability
alone.
Labor time increasing due to stress.
Mothers are consistently fighting outside
stresses during childbirth that negatively
affect their physical and mental health.
According to the CDC there were 3,628,934 births in 2024.
In a study measuring perceived stress during labor, about
52% of women had high stress and 26.8% of those women
showed depressive symptomatology.
The focus of this project was mothers who experience
childbirth unaccompanied, allowing me to design for an
extreme case where support is most limited. By solving for
this scenario, the solution naturally benefits all mothers.
THE PROBLEM
Unaccompanied mothers face these stresses at an even
higher intensity. Without support during birth, they’re left to
navigate every step on their own.
I created mood boards and fed them into chatGPT to create various birthing-bed concepts.
How can I create minimal, low-cost changes
that maximize comfort?
How can I create minimal, low-cost changes
that maximize comfort?
Focused on comfortability,
silhouette change.
Introducing pattern and cushion.
Comfortable but clinical hybrid.
Redesigning the birthing bed can improve physical comfort during labor, but providing mothers with reassuring, evidence-based information can empower them mentally long before they enter the room.
This is where I began to leverage Oura Ring’s LLM that already provides mothers with personal health insights.
Solving one side of the equation does not
create effective results.
Pregnancy advisor leaves insight-
informed tips.
32 year-old who preferred
a c-section.
21 year old with strong support
from family
54 year old who was well-
informed prior to labor
Educational videos screen, gives
user informational videos.
Pregnancy Roadmap to document milestones.
I was able to test my concept with 3 mothers in completely different circumstances.
TESTING
Through testing, I learned that women who feel
well-informed and confident experience less
fear as they approach childbirth.
Fabiola-Chez et al., birthing bed prototype tested by midwives in Chiapas, Mexico.
After reviewing Fabiola-Chávez’s UX research on birthing beds in Jalisco, Mexico, I realized that drastically redesigning the birthing bed would be nearly impossible given how deeply established it has become.
Recognizing the limitations of redesigning
medical devices.
The birthing bed has come a long way since its creation by Jacques Guillemeau in 1598, and yet it still feels clinical, sterile, and uninviting.
THE SOLUTION
THE FEATURES
Re-imagining the birthing bed to include
3 new naturalistic features.
Using Sketch-Up I created a new birthing bed concept,
focusing on natural elements and comfortability.
Foam handlebars to reduce
strain on wrists and improve
grip placement.
Wood vinyl and naturally patterned sheets to invite peace.
Open frame and stirrups to
provide support without
feeling claustrophobic.
Designing a comprehensive support system for unaccompanied mothers meant addressing not just the hospital birth experience, but everything that comes before and after it.
Mothers deserve continuous support throughout the entire journey, and if they ultimately face it alone, they should feel equipped and empowered to advocate for themselves.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Re-designing a part of the system is only
1/2 the solution.
Being fed disinformation from the media on the events that can happen during pregnancy fosters fear and leads to an un-navigable environment for mothers.
Introducing one new feature that builds a reliable information hub to support stressed mothers through childbirth.
Being fed disinformation from the media on the events that can happen during pregnancy fosters fear and leads to an un-navigable environment for mothers.
Cutting through birth misinformation with
trusted health data.
There was still a need to combat
disinformation for unaccompanied mothers.
Leveraging Oura Ring’s LLM to create a
pregnancy advisor.
THE FEATURES