Inspiration
Maternal and perinatal healthcare is currently fraught with three compounding systemic failures:
- Predatory Subscription Paywalls: Essential utilities like contraction timers, kick counters, and ovulation tracking are routinely locked behind expensive recurring paywalls, creating a financial barrier to basic prenatal monitoring.
- Reproductive Privacy Risks: Many commercial pregnancy applications transmit sensitive menstrual cycles, pregnancy losses, and medical symptoms to remote cloud databases, exposing parents to corporate data brokers and potential legal liabilities.
- Clinical Disconnect During Hospital Triage: In delivery rooms and emergency maternity triage, parents often arrive anxious with scattered notes on their phones. Clinicians must scramble to piece together contraction intervals, fetal movement history, and vital signs under high-stress conditions.
We asked a fundamental question: What if a maternal health application was 100% free forever, ran entirely in the parent's browser without sending a single byte of medical data to the cloud, and spoke in the calm, reassuring voice of an experienced sister-midwife?
From this question, Geva was born. At its heart sits Gbemi (named after the Yoruba phrase meaning "carry me / lift me up"), a handcrafted sister-midwife companion designed to provide comforting, evidence-based reassurance whenever parents need a calm presence.
What It Does
Geva accompanies parents across the complete perinatal continuum, adapting its guidance and tooling to each specific chapter:
1. The Three Perinatal Life Stages
- Stage 1: Conception & Family Planning (Trying to Conceive): Cycle day tracking, LH surge detection, basal body temperature logs, and preconception nutritional checklists.
- Stage 2: Pregnancy & Gestational Care (Weeks 1 through 40): Week-by-week anatomical development milestones, kick frequency logging, synthetic fetal Doppler acoustics, and active labor rhythm timing.
- Stage 3: Postpartum Recovery (The Fourth Trimester): Lochia healing progression, pelvic floor recovery milestones, newborn feeding and sleep windows, and Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) wellness check-ins.
2. Five Signature Capabilities
A. Gbemi: The Sister-Midwife Voice Sanctuary
- Parents can speak directly to Gbemi using natural voice input via the browser's native
SpeechRecognitionAPI. - An immediate "Request Received" visual confirmation ensures parents know their question was captured before advice begins.
- Gbemi replies in a calm, grounded human voice using on-device speech synthesis and client-side intelligence, modeling the supportive communication of an experienced community midwife.
B. CareCircle: Real-Time Multi-Window Partner Telemetry
- Partners stay synchronized without creating separate accounts, entering passwords, or sending data through cloud relays.
- Opening two browser windows side-by-side (mom console and partner console) connects them through the browser's native
BroadcastChannelAPI. - When the mother logs a kick or records a contraction, the partner screen updates in real time with synchronized kick pulses and live contraction wave monitors with sub-10ms latency.
C. Synthetic Fetal Doppler Acoustics (145 BPM)
- Rather than streaming static, pre-recorded MP3 audio files over the network, Geva synthesizes a dual-pulse acoustic simulation of fetal heart tones (145 BPM) client-side using the
Web Audio API. - An audio graph utilizes dual sine oscillators, biquad low-pass filtering, and dynamic gain ramps to accurately recreate the muffled fluid Doppler sound of a clinical ultrasound probe.
D. ACOG 5-1-1 Active Labor Rule & Triage
- Precision one-tap contraction timing automatically records surge duration and rest intervals.
- The system evaluates contraction patterns against the clinical 5-1-1 Active Labor Rule established by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG): contractions occurring 5 minutes apart, lasting at least 60 seconds, persisting for 1 full hour.
- Distinguishes irregular Braxton Hicks practice contractions from active labor, guiding parents toward rest and hydration when surges remain benign, and alerting them when it is time to contact their hospital or community midwife.
E. 1-Click Printable Clinical Visit Passport (SBAR Format)
- Transforms home-recorded kick trends, contraction intervals, blood pressure readings, and flagged symptoms into a standardized, one-page clinical summary.
- Structured according to the hospital standard SBAR format:
- S (Situation): Patient name, gestational age, blood type, and reason for consultation.
- B (Background): Gravida/para status, baseline vitals, and prenatal screening milestones.
- A (Assessment): Fetal kick session averages, contraction frequency, and red-flag symptom audit (preeclampsia checks, acute edema, visual changes).
- R (Recommendation): Suggested provider discussion points and next steps.
- Includes dedicated print stylesheets (
@media print) so parents can print or save a clean, single-page PDF to bring directly to their clinical appointments.
F. 1-Click Evaluator Personas
To allow reviewers and clinicians to explore Geva instantly without filling out lengthy onboarding forms, Geva includes three pre-hydrated personas pinned to the navigation bar:
- Clara (Conception): Cycle Day 14, LH ovulation surge confirmed, preconception lab history.
- Anjola (Pregnancy): Week 34 with 24 logged kick sessions, recent Braxton Hicks surges, normal blood pressure (114/72 mmHg).
- Maya (Postpartum): Week 4 postpartum with newborn feeding logs, lochia recovery notes, and an Edinburgh score of 3.
Architectural Comparison: Commercial Apps vs. Geva
| Dimension | Legacy Commercial Apps (e.g. Bump, Flo) | Geva Sovereign Health Sanctuary |
|---|---|---|
| Cost & Business Model | $15 to $30 monthly subscriptions, paid feature gates | 100% Free Forever ($0.00 cloud operational cost) |
| Data Privacy | Cloud databases subject to monetization and breaches | 100% On-Device Local Storage (IndexedDB + Dexie.js) |
| Voice Guidance | Paid cloud telephony APIs ($0.15/min) | Native Web Speech API ($0.00, zero API keys) |
| Partner Sync | Requires paid accounts, cloud logins, and servers | Zero-server BroadcastChannel multi-window sync |
| Fetal Heartbeat | Static, bandwidth-heavy external MP3 streams | Real-time Web Audio API dual-valve synthesizer |
| Clinical Handoff | Unstructured personal notes | Standardized ACOG-aligned SBAR Doctor Brief |
| Design Integrity | Neon gradients, emoji clutter, floating pill badges | Clean-room editorial design, zero-emoji policy |
How We Built It
Geva was developed as a clean-room web application combining modern frontend standards with native browser capabilities:
Tech Stack
- UI Framework: React 19 + Vite 6
- Styling & Tokens: Tailwind CSS 3.4 with custom design tokens
- Local Persistence: Dexie.js (IndexedDB) with localStorage fallbacks
- Voice Engine: Web Speech API (
SpeechRecognition&SpeechSynthesis) + WebLLM client-side inference - Audio Synthesis: Web Audio API (
AudioContext,BiquadFilterNode,GainNode,OscillatorNode) - Multi-Window Telemetry: Native
BroadcastChannelAPI - Vector Illustrations: Curated open-license Storyset Rafiki medical suite recolored to our palette
- Testing & Quality: Vitest, JSDOM, Testing Library, automated compliance script
┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Geva Client Application │
│ (React 19 + Tailwind CSS) │
└────────────────────┬────────────────────┘
│
┌────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────┐
│ │ │
▼ ▼ ▼
┌──────────────────┐ ┌──────────────────┐ ┌──────────────────┐
│ Voice Engine │ │ Audio Engine │ │ Telemetry Bus │
│ Web Speech API │ │ Web Audio API │ │ BroadcastChannel │
│ (STT / Synthesis)│ │ (145 BPM Doppler)│ │(Partner Monitor) │
└──────────────────┘ └──────────────────┘ └──────────────────┘
│ │ │
└────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────┘
│
▼
┌──────────────────────┐
│ Local-First Storage │
│ Dexie.js IndexedDB │
│ (100% On-Device) │
└──────────────────────┘
Clean-Room Nurturing Pregnancy Palette
- Crisp Pure White (
#FFFFFF): Foundational background providing visual clarity and generous whitespace. - Warm Rose (
#DDA59F): Primary actions, milestone horizon rings, and active navigation. - Soft Sage (
#9CAF88): Health tracking, hydration ticks, and baby growth indicators. - Warm Peach (
#F4C095): Midwife reflections, daily guidance, and low-urgency notifications. - Muted Periwinkle (
#9FB1D0): Kick telemetry charts, contraction waves, and sleep logs. - Espresso Slate (
#2D2424): High-contrast, warm typography that avoids the harshness of pure black.
Challenges We Ran Into
- Acoustic Physics of the Fetal Doppler: Generating a believable fetal heartbeat in code required fine acoustic tuning. A standard oscillator sounds harsh and artificial. We resolved this by chaining two distinct sine wave pulses (a primary 72 Hz "lub" followed 130 milliseconds later by a secondary 62 Hz "dub" reflection) through a steep low-pass biquad filter set at 115 Hz, simulating the acoustic damping of amniotic fluid.
- Microphone Lifecycle & Speech State Coordination: Handling asynchronous microphone permissions and recognition lifecycles across various browsers can cause missed transcripts or awkward delays. We designed a state machine that transitions between idle, listening, request-received, and speaking states, giving the user unambiguous visual confirmation the instant speech input stops.
- Zero-Server Multi-Window Synchronization: Connecting partner consoles without an external WebSocket server or cloud database required careful event schema design over the
BroadcastChannelAPI. We built an isolated telemetry bus that handles kick dispatches, contraction start/stop signals, and hydration tallies with sub-10ms latency across open windows. - Strict Anti-AI-Slop & Editorial Discipline: Maintaining an editorial tone meant enforcing a strict Zero-Emoji policy and avoiding generic icon libraries. We built a custom compliance script (
scripts/verify-compliance.cjs) that scans the codebase for emoji code points and banned marketing clichés, ensuring Geva speaks with the calm dignity of a clinical publication.
Accomplishments That We're Proud Of
- 100% Free Forever Architecture: Proved that a high-utility maternal health application can operate with $0.00 cloud server costs, eliminating financial barriers to essential prenatal tools.
- Gbemi Companion Component: Created a responsive, handcrafted SVG companion featuring rich melanin skin tones, natural curls, and four live animated states (serene idle breathing, listening sage pulse, speaking voice wave, and celebratory blooms).
- Clinical SBAR Passport Generator: Delivered a doctor-ready medical brief that bridges the gap between home tracking and hospital triage, earning praise from our midwife advisors.
- Acoustically Synthesized Fetal Doppler: Modeled a 145 BPM fetal heartbeat entirely in client-side code, saving streaming bandwidth and functioning offline.
- Automated Quality & Compliance: Backed by 14 automated tests verifying clean state initialization, clinical triage logic, Nigerian name formatting, and zero-emoji compliance.
What We Learned
- The Latent Power of Browser Primitives: Modern web platform APIs (Web Audio, Web Speech, BroadcastChannel, IndexedDB) are mature enough to replace entire tiers of expensive cloud infrastructure.
- Clinical Communication Matters as Much as Data Collection: Merely collecting kick numbers or contraction minutes is insufficient. Formatting that data into clinical structures that obstetricians and triage midwives recognize (such as SBAR and the ACOG 5-1-1 rule) transforms raw metrics into actionable medical insights.
- Dignified Design Supports Calmer Care: Removing flashing badges, neon buttons, and emoji clutter in favor of generous whitespace and warm, grounding tones directly reduces user anxiety during high-stress pregnancy moments.
What's Next for Geva
- WebRTC Peer-to-Peer Cross-Device Sync: Extend the local
BroadcastChannelpartner sync to cross-device mobile pairing using lightweight WebRTC DataChannels without central cloud databases. - Offline WebGPU Speech Models: Integrate lightweight client-side Whisper models to enable speech recognition in low-connectivity rural maternity clinics.
- Encrypted FHIR R4 Medical Export: Allow parents to export their perinatal logs directly into electronic health record (EHR) systems using standard HL7 FHIR JSON formatting.
- Multilingual Voice Sanctuary: Expand Gbemi's spoken guidance to include Yoruba, Spanish, French, Swahili, and Portuguese.
- Pelvic Floor & Fourth-Trimester Telemetry: Add guided postpartum pelvic floor exercise timers and longitudinal Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale score trends.
Built With
- broadcastchannel
- css
- dexie.js
- indexeddb
- jsdom
- react
- tailwind
- typescript
- vite
- vitest
- webllm
- zod
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