A 23-year-old student midwife from Streatham, south London, is taking a groundbreaking step to address disparities in maternal and neonatal care for Black and Brown families.
Ruby Jackson has created an app called “Melanatal,” aimed at raising awareness of how certain medical conditions manifest differently on darker skin tones.
Jackson, a student at the University of Brighton, was inspired to develop the app after noticing the gap in knowledge about how symptoms of conditions like jaundice, pre-eclampsia, and mastitis appear on non-white skin.
Her app offers both patients and healthcare providers visual guides that show how these conditions look on Black and Brown skin, helping ensure timely and accurate diagnosis.
The inspiration for “Melanatal” came during Jackson’s placement in Ghana, where she observed healthcare workers pointing out signs of jaundice in babies by looking at areas like the soles of the feet and the whites of the eyes.
This contrasted with her university training, which focused on looking for yellowing skin—a sign that may not be as easily noticeable on babies with darker skin tones.
The experience made her realize how easy it could be to miss key symptoms if healthcare providers were not trained to recognize them on diverse skin types.
“I thought, ‘How many times could I have missed that?’ And I don’t want that to happen,” Jackson told the BBC.
Jackson’s project has earned her a spot in the prestigious NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Programme, where she was able to pitch her idea to digital health firms like Amazon Web Services Healthcare, Cogniss, and The Validitron.
In June, she was named one of the winners, securing 12 months of mentorship and business support to develop the app.
The importance of this innovation is underscored by a 2021 report that found Black women in the UK were four times more likely to die during pregnancy or immediately after giving birth compared to white women.
Melanatal aims to bridge this gap by improving early diagnosis and treatment of conditions in Black and Brown mothers and infants.
Maggie Myatt, a Sussex midwife and mother, praised the app, saying it would enable families to seek care earlier and help medical professionals detect serious conditions before they worsen.
The app is being built with hyper-realistic medical illustrations and photographs to ensure accuracy.
The project has also garnered support from Thelma Lackey, a senior lecturer at the University of Brighton’s School of Education, Sports, and Health Science, who highlighted that the knowledge gap around recognizing medical conditions on different skin tones is a nationwide issue.
Melanatal is expected to pilot within a trust once completed, potentially transforming maternal and neonatal care for Black and Brown families in the UK.
