Emotional support platform for young parents during pregnancy and for a year following birth

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Advisor: Liran Elbaz Bloch

Pregnancy, birth, and life after birth are times filled with medical tests. Parents and professionals are intensively focused on maintaining the health of babies and caring for their needs. This puts babies at center stage, with parents often marginalized to the sidelines. The entire process almost dismisses the emotional and mental state of parents, how they are feeling and coping with the changes.

Many parents experience emotional and mental hardships but do not feel comfortable seeking help. This suppression and dismissal of emotions can lead to post-partum depression.

My project focuses on parents and the emotional support they need. To facilitate and provide a space to release and process emotion, identify difficulties, normalize feelings, and coordinate expectations. I wanted to provide support and guidance and make tools accessible.

The system includes an emotional processing and support app, couple's discussion cards, and a personal empowerment journal.

Early detection reducing likelihood of illness – My project raises the issue of emotions parents feel throughout the entire process, and when in difficulty parents can ask for guidance and seek help earlier if there is any concern for developing post-partum depression.

Understand there is a problem, that there is a way to treat me, and somewhere you can ask for help.

The system is social and its use within the complete responsibility of the user.

Post-partum depression is often the result of unrealistic expectations.
It is important to prepare parents and help them develop their resilience in the face of failures and difficulties.

If we could detect signs during pregnancy we would minimize the risk of harm following birth
Dr. Rada Artzi Medavdik, registered psychiatric nurse, previous postnatal health clinic, and lactation consultant

What are the most common struggles?
Lack of preparation for the period following birth…
The practical care of the baby and emotional difficulties are two issues prevalent among parents after birth.
There is a need to normalize situations and know that it's alright and that many couples experience difficulties
Miri Shaked, afterbirth dula, baby massage parent instructor, and counselor for mother after delivery

Everything is ok – crying, not immediately falling in love with the baby, asking for help when you need it. It's just a matter of time and adjustment. Even your pain and struggles with the baby – everyone experiences it in one way or another
Inbar, mother to 7-month baby

An emotional processing and support app that allows users to express emotions, difficulties, and successes, to understand them and accept help when needed. This includes emotional support, mirroring, personalized assistance, sharing with loved ones, and a support community.

The app is AI based and provides help using incoming data gathered into databases.

It is important to think of these things during pregnancy, raise awareness, and normalize emotions. It's frightening to experience this and feel you are alone. Knowing you are not alone and that many others feel the same…provides motivation and is calming

Cards to encourage couples' discussion. Allow couples to go through this period together, to understand and accept the other, to coordinate expectations, provide encouragement, and better cope with hardships, coming out stronger from complex times.

The cards are divided into three categories (sharing, encouragement, and coping) and are designed to nurture a diverse, positive, and bonding discussion on the three subjects.

We are a couple that talks and we wondered how our conversations would change. We used the cards for a few consecutive days and loved the fact that each day opened up new subjects of discussion.
Instead of generally asking each other how we were doing, we talked about different topics, some light and other profound, depending on our mood

Personal empowerment journal The journal is designed to provide a space for expressing feeling and articulating difficulties, learning how to cope differently, provide self-encouragement, gain a fresh perspective, and feel better. The journal is divided into four categories: release, coping, progress, and encouragement.

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Design language

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About me

Rani Yefet

UX/UI designer that believes in designs that are practical for users and based on comprehensive research into user needs.

Are you also interested in industrial design?

Come study in Hadassah!

A fast-paced world poses challenges and offers many fascinating opportunities for people, society, and animals. Empathy, sensitivity, attentiveness to others, and a desire to explore, understand, and implement are the focus of our department. We employ a range of skills to encourage and lead to change. Come study with us.