LatchAid, the Bristol firm that uses apps to support breastfeeding mothers worldwide, is to expand under a new name.
Rebranding to Anya allows the firm to expand its scope beyond breastfeeding to the first 1,001 days of parenthood, helping families to overcome a much broader range of challenges in line with the government’s A Better Start in Life initiative. 
The firm was set up by Dr Chen Mao Davies, an Oscar and BAFTA-winning expert in computer graphics and animation, after facing her own struggles with breastfeeding, pain and subsequent depression.
She realised that mothers needed maternal support fit for the 21st century; a smart, on-hand, interactive way to learn vital and practical breastfeeding skills.
Part of the SETsquared Bristol incubator, it launched in August 2021 and immediately found a ready market as the only parenting app “powered by empathy and innovation”. It is now available in 99 countries worldwide.
The rebrand has been developed to showcase the app as a leading credible, consistent, and cutting-edge parenting app in the marketplace.
The second-generation app itself has benefitted from a complete redesign and redevelopment for a fresh and sleek new look, much smoother workflow, and user experience, building on user feedback from the Gen1 app.
The LatchAid name lives on as the unique 3D breastfeeding support tool in the app, which has been improved to provide clear visual learning for latching.
The new app also allows healthcare teams to provide continuity of care, bridging the gap between antenatal and postnatal care to improve health outcomes, while a new Anya AI virtual supporter has been built with wider, deeper, and more efficient 24/7 support from AI and from specialists, with users able to access active and historic chats.
New ‘insights’ and ‘explore’ components offer tailored articles, videos, webinars and content to parents across the whole pregnancy, parenting and infant feeding spectrum and its virtual community groups have been expanded to offer moderated peer support. All information is shared in a caring, non-judgemental, and supportive way.
The firm also recently won the coveted SBRI Healthcare funding competition to develop additional features and content in the app to tackle healthcare inequalities in maternity care.
This project will be co-developed with key NHS partners, along with groups of parents in target demographics and will include more accurate and diverse 3D interactive breastfeeding animations, sentiment AI with a multi-response action system to provide personalised, empathetic support, and virtual peer-to-peer support communities allowing self-selection by ethnicity, language, and other key themes supported by a diverse range of real-life specialists.
Chen, pictured, said with breastfeeding rates in the UK among the lowest in the world, and experts saying that 90% of mothers gave up breastfeeding before they wanted to, it was clear there needed to be more support available.
“It’s been so exciting to see my baby LatchAid grow up into Anya, on both iOS and Android,” she added.
“We know how important access to evidence-based information and support has already been to new parents via the app. We look forward to reaching many more families inclusively with our SBRI Healthcare funding.”
LatchAid also recently announced that it had won the coveted SBRI Healthcare funding competition to develop additional features and content in the app to tackle healthcare inequalities in maternity care. This project will be co-developed with key NHS partners, along with groups of parents in target demographics.
The programme will expand the game-changing technology solution to address health inequalities, including more accurate and diverse 3D interactive breastfeeding animations, sentiment AI with a multi-response action system to provide personalised, empathetic support, and virtual peer-to-peer support communities allowing self-selection by ethnicity, language, and other key themes supported by a diverse range of real-life specialists.
