Testing a startup's postpartum health kit taught me to trust my body
Illustration: Tiffany Herring/Axios
A year after the birth of my first child, I struggled to get care for a confusing array of symptoms — so when a startup offered to help, I opted to give it a shot.
Why it matters: Despite advances in medical technology and research, postpartum care remains fragmented and lacking — a stark reality that led me to maternal health testing startup Trellis Health.
Follow the money: Founded in San Francisco in 2022, Trellis has raised $1.8 million in seed funding from Palette Ventures, Swizzle Ventures, NextBlue, Suncoast Ventures, and Sundial Foundation.
How it works: For what it calls its "general postpartum lab panel," Trellis sends you a home blood testing box that you mail back.
- The test is $249 and tests 31 biomarkers it says help assess hormonal balance, inflammation, cardiovascular health, and nutrition.
- Trellis' service is HSA eligible and charges a $96 annual subscription fee for additional services.
What they're saying: For many people, "pregnancy is the first time you truly experience the health care system, and postpartum is the first time you're dropped from the system," Trellis CEO Estelle Giraud tells Axios.
Context: I was diagnosed with severe pre-eclampsia 3 weeks before my child was born, but I began developing symptoms months earlier.
- In those early months, my providers — initially reluctant to diagnose me at all — eventually labeled my condition "mild pre-eclampsia" because my blood pressure results weren't as abnormal as they typically are for women with the condition.
- Several ER visits and a month-long hospital stay later, my diagnosis was upgraded to "severe."
What I found: Looking at my blood pressure results in the app, I noticed that the moment I began telling my providers something was wrong, my labs were agreeing with me.
- My normal BP hovers around 100/70 (the first number is systolic; the second is diastolic), but when I told my doctors that, they doubted me.
- One literally said "No it doesn't!" and laughed.
- As shown in the Trellis app, my BP from 2018 to early 2024 was indeed in the ranges I reported — roughly 100/70.
- My BP started to slowly rise starting about in May 2024, about two months before the birth and hit 124/86 on June 10, 2024.
Yes, but: The standard diagnostic criteria for pre-eclampsia monitoring is 140/90, so I wasn't admitted. Plus, when they did a urine test, part of the diagnostic process for pre-eclampsia, it came back negative.
- More than two weeks later at the end of June, my BP spiked to 143/102, and another urine test came back positive for pre-eclampsia. I was admitted to the hospital, given magnesium and several other treatments, and monitored around the clock until the birth.
Taking the test
Following the company's directions, I fasted for 12 hours, drank enough water, and warmed up and cleaned my upper arm, where I then lanced it three times to collect my blood.
- The blood draw process wasn't ideal — as directed, I placed the device on my arm and pushed a button to puncture the skin — but I had to wait five minutes for blood to start trickling into the tube I'd attached.
- Once my time was up, I removed the lancets, wiped and bandaged my arm, sealed up the tubes, and placed them back in the included box for return shipment (alongside an included ice pack which I'd frozen the night before).
- While I worked on registering my kit (I encountered a few technical difficulties entering and saving the number in the app) I dropped my package off at FedEx.
The intrigue: Giraud had a similar experience of having historically low blood pressure and a delayed pre-eclampsia diagnosis. One of her goals for Trellis is to help ensure more people can get medical oversight earlier.
- "I want to put data behind these stats," she says. "How many of these pre-eclampsia diagnoses happen with women that have naturally lower blood pressure?"
Between the lines: Before I collected my blood samples, I'd created an account with Trellis and permitted the company to upload my historical health data from other providers.
- I was shocked to see results spanning five-plus years of my health journey, containing pregnancy ultrasounds and standard blood panels and hormone tests I did pre-pregnancy.
- It even had one of the first COVID tests I took at a facility more than five years ago.
Friction point: Seeing health results is one thing; interpreting them is another, and I found that Trellis didn't offer much in the way of the latter. (Giraud says the company plans to have midwives interpret the results for patients in the future.)
- For example, my complete blood count (CBC) data collected before and after the birth showed several results that were "out of range" of normal, but Trellis didn't explain why — it only showed them in red instead of the normal green.
- My results from Trellis' biomarker panel were also not particularly revealing: All the areas I tested were within the standard range considered healthy, so there's not much I plan to change as far as my day-to-day.
My thought bubble: With the rise of a new cadre of AI care advocates, I can see the potential utility of a tool like Trellis — especially when they roll out their own version, which Giraud says is coming next year.
- Had I been able to view my blood pressure results when I was feeling off — and crucially, before I had been admitted to the hospital — I might have gotten treatment sooner.
- Perhaps, too, results from more patients like me could power additional research into patients with conditions such as pre-eclampsia whose results don't fall into the standard "abnormal" ranges.
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