Bumpin' and the Modern Birth Industry - Leslie Schrock

09/17/2020

Bumpin' and the Modern Birth Industry
Leslie Schrock

Today, we talk with Leslie Schrock (leslieschrock.com), entrepreneur, investor, and author of Bumpin’: The Modern Guide to Pregnancy (bumpin.com), which she wrote in real time when she was pregnant, and is a real and honest look at the birth process from the decision to conceive through birth and postpartum.

We talk about her efforts growing Rock Health (https://rockhealth.com), a startup accelerator of companies that improve the quality, safety, and accessibility of our healthcare system. She gives examples of companies that provide telehealth care specifically for women, such as Maven (https://www.mavenclinic.com) and Origin (https://www.theoriginway.com).

We talk about the importance of investing in women’s health, as well as the history behind the underrepresentation of women in clinical trials. Leslie talks about how the defects and tragedy caused by thalidomide essentially banned women from clinical trials in the U.S. for a long time, and how women are still suffering the effects from that. We talk about the growth of women’s health, and we predict it will only continue to grow into the future. We discuss the importance of education in health and anatomy, and how especially investing in women’s health education can influence families and society at large to take better care of their bodies.

Leslie talks more about her birth experience, including her preparation and recovery. We focus on the importance of realizing that you can’t control birth, and how you shouldn’t let a negative birth experience define yourself as a parent. Leslie then talks about the success of her book, Bumpin’, as well as her plans for a future book that takes a more comprehensive look at women’s health. We discuss the importance of both women and men committing to learning about fertility.

• 0:52 Writing Bumpin’ and Growing Rock Health; Telehealth
• 9:16 Investing in Women’s Health and Health Education 
• 30:16 Lessons Leslie Learned From Her Birth Experience
• 38:38 Changing the Conversation About Women’s Health and Fertility

https://leslieschrock.com/
Check out Bumpin' Here
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The medical world, while it is ever advancing, continues to lag behind in some areas of women's health. Because of lingering past ideas combined with failure to integrate women into medical trials, often the first time women are able to meaningfully see to their health is when they become pregnant. It's important that we take note of these issues and start working toward making them a larger priority in medicine so that women's health issues can be recognized and corrected long before they start causing trouble in pregnancy.

Sarah and Leslie dive into the medical world and the exhaustingly pervasive issue of women's health issues being ignored, as well as the problems that this causes going into pregnancy. They also discuss how the experiences surrounding pregnancy and birth shape how people parent, and the trajectory of progress for the future of birth and women's health education.

Leslie is an investor and entrepreneur with a decade of experience working at the intersection of health and technology. She helped grow Rock Health, a startup accelerator and venture fund, from an idea to a globally-known firm with over 100 portfolio companies and more than one billion dollars in funding. When she’s not writing, Leslie spends her time with startups improving the way we live. Leslie was named one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business, and her work has been featured in publications including NPR, Time, GQ, Entrepreneur, Wired, and The New York Times. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and son.