Mavida Health, a virtual mental health provider for parents, is introducing new offerings for LGBTQ+ patients.
The new offering will offer individual, group and couples therapy focused on queer family building and expands Mavida’s library of content and community resources for the population. Mavida, founded in 2022, operates in California, New York and New Jersey. It currently works with Aetna.
The content being offered includes a mixture of videos, meditations and informational articles. They follow Mavida’s therapeutic approach, which is grounded in acceptance and commitment therapy—aligning actions to values. The content, discussion forums and support groups, moderated by experts, are accessible nationwide for $99 annually.
The company is also building a peer guide mentoring program, which has not yet been rolled out, to enable personalized peer support. “There’s so much stigma for people who are building families in this community, they also need to know that it’s a safe space,” Mavida co-founder and CEO Sarah Oreck, M.D., told Fierce Healthcare.
The latest offerings come at a time of growing uncertainty for many trying to build a family, and particularly queer patients who already face many barriers to care. With access to IVF and surrogacy currently at stake, other barriers—such as custody rights for queer families—contribute to the stress they face, Oreck said.
Sexual minority women have been found to be more likely to screen positive for postpartum depression compared to heterosexual women. Queer women are also more likely to experience pregnancy and infant loss, low birth weight infants and very preterm births—all risk factors for postpartum mood and anxiety disorders. And LGBTQ+ adults have a higher likelihood of experiencing a mental health condition and increased likelihood of attempting suicide in general.
Oreck is a reproductive psychiatrist by background, a specialty that is hard to find in the U.S. Yet their training is crucial, as many OBGYNs simply don’t have the training or time to deal with mental health issues, per Oreck. Prescribing medications during pregnancy remains highly stigmatized, and even if a medication is prescribed, it needs to be coupled with therapy, Oreck argues. But today, many mental health practitioners have long waitlists or are expensive. (Mavida also provides medication management.)
“Telehealth has been really supportive to people who are pregnant or postpartum and don’t want to go to yet another appointment,” Oreck said. Mavida also takes a training approach to ensure its providers understand the intricacies and nuances of mental health in people on the family-building journey.
Mavida clinicians practice measurement-based care, surveying patients every week about what Oreck describes as their psychological flexibility, such as how well they are taking care of themselves. When prescribing medications, clinicians also ask how a patient is reacting to a given drug. Mavida also tracks patient-reported outcome questionnaires in the first, sixth and 12th week of treatment. That data is provided to both the clinician and the patient. As a result, Oreck said this type of transparency encourages higher response rates.
The company also plans to integrate wearables data. “So much of behavioral health is not objective,” Oreck noted, and that bringing together survey responses with wearables data is an exciting way to drive personalized care.
Mavida is also exploring pharmacogenomic testing for certain patients with bad side effects, or who have been through many different drugs already. Pharmacogenomics examines how a person’s genetic variations affect their responses to various drugs.
Mavida raised its pre-seed round last year, with $1.5 million from Precursor Ventures and Lakehouse Ventures. It is currently raising its seed round.