Emily Sylvester’s business, Mother of Fact, rose out of tragedy. Sylvester, a registered dietician and lactation consultant, was working with a large Boston hospital when an infant died from nutrition-related pregnancy and postpartum complications. While the hospital assured Sylvester she had done everything possible to save the baby, Sylvester realized that there would never be enough providers like herself to prevent these tragedies from happening.
As infant mortality is rising, especially among families of color, there is a shortage of registered dieticians who play an important role during pregnancy. Nutrition is cited as a way to decrease infant mortality rates and Sylvester says telemedicine can provide nutrition services to more patients.
“It was really hard to scale and grow a team because it was so labor intensive,” she says. However, she had a potential solution: use telehealth to help registered dietitians reach more vulnerable patients, including people of color, low-income individuals, and people living in rural areas.
That was back in 2019, before telehealth received a pandemic-related boost, but Sylvester was confident her idea could work. After giving birth that year to her third child, Sylvester was accepted into EforAll, a business accelerator program on Cape Cod. “That was basically my six-month MBA,” she said.
Through the accelerator, Sylvester realized that the problem of nutrition-related pregnancy complications was large enough to turn a technical solution into a viable business enterprise. Sylvester moved her family to Sunapee, in part because the lower cost of living would allow her to focus on her business full time. She attracted outside capital investments, and later funding from the National Institutes of Health, which is ongoing today.
Mother of Fact now works with health clinics and hospitals in three states: Maine, Mississippi and California. When a pregnant parent receives a referral—given for a myriad of reasons ranging from obesity to high blood pressure to gestational diabetes—they can download the app and immediately begin texting with a registered dietician. They receive a telehealth visit within the next two weeks, and the support continues throughout their pregnancy and postpartum period.
Sylvester and her team of six now have an eye toward contracting with Medicaid insurance, which covers half of births nationally, including many for the vulnerable populations that Sylvester aims to serve. Using the three states where Mother of Fact is already active, she’s gathering data to prove that investing in nutritional care not only saves lives but saves money too. “The growth potential is exponential,” Sylvester says.