Maternity is not a healthcare provider

Maternity exists to help parents feel less alone, more informed, and more confident. We host courses, host community spaces, and connect you with vetted independent practitioners and businesses through our marketplace. We do not diagnose, treat, prescribe, or provide healthcare.

You are the person closest to your situation, and the clinician who knows you (your midwife, doctor, paediatrician, mental-health professional) is the one qualified to advise on it. The platform is here to help you ask better questions and feel less alone — not to substitute for care.

• We have no information about your specific medical history, current medications, allergies, family circumstances, or relevant test results. Generalised content cannot responsibly become individual advice without that.
• Best practice in pregnancy, birth, and infant care evolves. Anything you read on Maternity is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time it was written, but may not reflect the latest guidance from your local professional body.
• What is appropriate in one country, one health system, or one family situation may not be appropriate in another.

Course instructors and marketplace providers may hold professional credentials, and where they do we display those credentials and require evidence of their currency. Their interaction with you on the platform is educational and does not create a clinician–patient relationship.

If you separately engage an instructor or provider for regulated care outside of Maternity (for example, a private midwifery consultation, a therapy appointment, a financial plan), that engagement is governed by their own contract and professional regulator, not by Maternity. We are not a party to it.

Instructors and providers are required by their terms to refer you to a qualified clinician when a question is outside their scope of practice. If you ever feel a practitioner is exceeding their scope or pressuring you to delay care, please tell us at team@maternity.app.

1. Acute or red-flag symptom? Go to step 5 — Emergencies.
2. Worried but not acute? Contact your clinician (midwife, GP, paediatrician). Most have an after-hours triage line.
3. Looking for context, not a decision? Browsing courses, talking to your village, and reading articles can help you frame the question — but bring the decision to your clinician.
4. Mental health. See the section below.

Red-flag symptoms during pregnancy include, without limitation:

• Heavy or bright-red vaginal bleeding.
• Severe headache that does not lift, sudden swelling, blurred vision, or upper abdominal pain (signs of pre-eclampsia).
• A noticeable change in your baby’s movements.
• Fluid leaking from the vagina, sudden severe pain, or contractions before 37 weeks.
• High fever, breathlessness, or chest pain.
• Thoughts of harming yourself or your baby (see Mental health, below).

Red-flag symptoms in a baby include difficulty breathing, a rash that does not fade under a glass, persistent high fever, a baby that is unusually drowsy or floppy, signs of dehydration, or any concern that “this is not normal for my baby”.

Pregnancy and the postpartum period carry real mental-health risk. If you are having thoughts of harming yourself, your baby, or anyone else, please contact a crisis line or your local emergency service straight away. You are not alone, and help works.

• Canada (current operating region): 911 in an emergency. 988 (Suicide Crisis Helpline, call or text). Talk Suicide Canada 1-833-456-4566. In Quebec, 1-866-APPELLE (1-866-277-3553).
• US (future expansion): 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline); Postpartum Support International 1-800-944-4773.
• Latin America (future expansion): contact your country’s local emergency service and perinatal mental-health line.
• EU (future expansion): 112 (general emergency).
• UK: NHS 111 option 2 (mental health), or 999 in an emergency.

We display these in-app on relevant content. Maternity is currently operating in Canada, with planned expansion to the USA and Latin America. If your country is not listed, please save your local equivalents now, before you need them.

• High-risk pregnancies, multiples, IVF, prior losses. Generalised content is even less likely to apply. Lean on your clinician.
• Medication and supplements. Do not start, stop, or change a prescription based on something you read on the platform.
• Infant feeding decisions. Whether to breastfeed, combination-feed, or formula-feed is your decision, supported by evidence specific to you and your baby. Lactation consultants on the platform can support you; they are not a substitute for paediatric care.
• Newborn safe sleep. Always follow the safe sleep guidance from your country’s paediatric body (e.g. ESPGHAN / AAP / NHS) regardless of what is shown in user-generated photographs.

Maternity is currently operating in Canada, with planned expansion to the United States and Latin America. This disclaimer is provided in addition to, not in place of, any rights you have under the laws of your country of residence.

As we open in each new region, we’ll update this disclaimer to reference the local emergency numbers, regulators, and clinical bodies that apply there. Nothing here limits liability for fraud, gross negligence, or anything else that cannot be limited under applicable law.

Concerns about content or a practitioner: team@maternity.app.