Dr. Pinkey Patel
Unable to ignore the problems she saw in maternal healthcare, Pinkey is using every tool at her disposal to reroute women’s postpartum journeys.
Who is the biggest influence in your life? Why?
My Mother. From coming to a foreign country right after a marriage, not possessing an education or knowing how to speak or read English, with $7, she worked endlessly to ensure her children and family would have things she never had. She did it with grace and embodied grit.
What’s the single biggest problem you’d like to solve in your community?
Bridge the gap in maternal and postpartum healthcare. The average time between delivery and the first postpartum follow up visit is 6 weeks. After 6 weeks of sedentary living and physical-mental changes, women are cleared to return to normal activity. Nine months of creating life and readjusting organs, cannot be solved effectively in one 15-minute appointment. If we support our mothers emotionally and physically, we can create thriving moms. A thriving mom leads to a thriving family, which leads to a thriving society.
“If we support our mothers emotionally and physically, we can create thriving moms. A thriving mom leads to a thriving family, which leads to a thriving society.”
What’s been the biggest obstacle in your life so far?
Navigating how to build and scale a technical business without a single business or tech course under my belt. For me, it happened to be in a pandemic, a full-time job and with diapers in tow. I remember when we launched the app globally, 4 weeks prior to delivering my second baby. Users were downloading it across the world in beta. My water broke and I convinced my husband to stay at home while I was in labor so I could get some issues resolved. I took my laptop to the delivery room. The pressure of wanting to make sure your business “baby” survives while pushing out your real baby is a rush.
One year from today, how do you hope you’re different?
I need to allow myself some grace and need to learn to enjoy the journey. I find myself always looking for that next milestone and it has taken some time to realize that it will always be that way.
pinkey is one of 100 women we have featured in the inaugural issue of Hundred Magazine. To learn more about her and the other 99 women, buy the issue.
