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A multi-million dollar maternity start-up backed by Chelsea Clinton which promised to revolutionize the way women give birth, has been hit with a lawsuit — the second in as many years alleging medical malpractice, The Post has learned.
Oula — which provides midwife care from four boutique clinics in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Norwalk, Conn. — is being sued by Vantisha Knowles for “negligently acting outside the applicable standard of care,” according to court papers filed in New York State Supreme Court in March.
Knowles, 39, who is a realtor, said she went to Oula when having her second child, a daughter.
She had been looking for a clinic that worked with midwives and “they were great for pre-natal” but when she went to give birth it turned into “a traumatic experience”.
“They basically rushed me through labor and did a C-section,” she told The Post, adding the experience was so bad it has contributed to her decision not to have any more children.
In her complaint is says Knowles “sustained grave and permanent injuries” during the C-section, without going into specifics.
Speaking to The Post, Knowles says after getting home, after she called Oula to describe her injuries “they just told me to go to emergency. They had not solutions for me. Why couldn’t I just go through them?”
Knowles said she needed to be hospitalized and to have blood transfusions. “They just don’t care,” she claimed.
Knowles’ suit also names Mount Sinai Hospital and Ila Dayananda, an obstetrician/gynecologist and former chief medical officer for Planned Parenthood of Greater New York, who works for Oula.
“The defendants, their agents, and/or employees failed to provide reasonable medical care and deviated from accepted medical practice in the care, treatment, evaluation, management, and services provided to the plaintiff,” her legal papers claim.
The charges she levels at the clinic are negligently “failing to properly evaluate plaintiff to determine the necessity of performing a C-section delivery of her baby, by failing to properly wait for plaintiff’s labor and delivery to progress; by failing to take into account plaintiff’s prior medical history,” the lawsuit reads.
In 2023, Oula — which is affiliated with Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City — was hit with a lawsuit by a Brooklyn couple who claimed its negligence led to their baby being born badly brain-damaged. That lawsuit is ongoing, court records show.
“They’re growing fast, but they don’t seem to understand their own business,” said a source, who claimed the start-up has lost a handful of midwives at the clinics in the last several months.
“Oula is a rudderless ship. A lot of the midwives are burned out, and scared they will be hit with malpractice suits.”
In a response to The Post’s request for comment, Oula said: “We do not comment on medical claims due to healthcare privacy laws.”
Oula’s star-studded promotional events have featured CBS News anchor Gayle King, ballerina Misty Copeland and Seagram’s heiress Hannah Bronfman, while its woke social media includes motivational quotes for “birthing people.”
The clinics also feature spa-like interiors that resemble high-end boutique hotels.
Oula is one of a number of start-ups aiming to cash in on a potentially lucrative change in the Affordable Care Act, which ordered insurers to pay for midwife-led care for pregnant women.
The change was prompted by concern that mothers in the US have exceptionally high rates of birth by C-section and that maternal mortality rates are too high.
More than 32 percent of live births in the US were caesarian deliveries in 2022, according to the March of Dimes.
This is more than double what the World Health Organization deems ideal for caesarian births, at 10 percent to 15 percent.
Oula, which opened its first clinic in 2021, was started by Harvard grad Adrianne Nickerson, who has degrees in biology and global health, as well as Elaine Purcell, who has a master’s in health care administration from New York University, according to their LinkedIn profiles.
Oula’s secured $28 million from a fund run by investors, including Clinton, who also has a master’s in public health from Columbia University. That funding allowed Oula to open its first clinics in Lower Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Norwalk. The firm also has offices on the Upper West Side.
“Very proud to be an investor in Oula as they continue to build a midwife-centered care model that has better outcomes for mothers & babies alike,” Clinton posted on X in December 2023.
English (US)