Inside A Bengaluru Startup Providing Stigma-Free Healthcare To All Women

If you have a conversation with any woman in the country about female reproductive healthcare and wellness, you’d be met with a slew of concerns and negative anecdotes. From being asked “Are you married?” instead of “Are you sexually active?” to being told to lose weight, or even to get married, as a way to combat PCOS, there are a lot of shared experiences that Indian women have faced when seeking healthcare. The lack of judgement-free healthcare services for female-specific concerns causes a lot of serious issues to slip through the cracks.

But whether you’re seeking a gynaecologist, a nutritionist, a therapist or simply would like to get screened or vaccinated, Proactive For Her is a venture to know about. Started in Bengaluru, the organisation seeks to provide reproductive healthcare and wellness for women, beyond the confines and stigma of the traditional systems. The doctors are trauma-informed and queer-affirmative as well. Founded in 2020 by Anchinta Jacob as a digital clinic for women, Proactive For Her has been expanded and developed further on the original concept to build two flagship clinics in Bangalore and has added more doctors and services that can be accessed through the website.

“When it comes to women’s health in India, it’s not just a clinical problem that we’re solving, it’s also a cultural problem," said Anchitha Jacbo in an interview with the Indian Express. But it is not just enough to make the services available, it is also important to ensure the accessibility of ventures like this to people across the board. To increase the accessibility of their service, this venture brings together all the doctors that a woman would need for her well-being and offer affordable teleconsultations with them. In fact, the venture started with three key products — teleconsultation, diagnostics and issue-specific packages. They have an in-house team of gynaecologists, endocrinologists, dermatologists, pathologists, psychiatrists, internists, psychotherapists, nutritionists and even pleasure and intimacy experts.  

The diagnostics and testing services is possibly the most interesting aspect, as they have included sexual and reproductive tests like STI panels and HPV screening, hormone level testing for PCOS and thyroid concerns, and even general check-ups for even hair health and weight management. Within the world of health and medicine, preventive care is something that became a focus during the pandemic. But the availability of a physical space for these consultations was a necessity. With clinics in Koramangala and Indiranagar, they encourage routine checkups and screenings to prevent any concerns and to find solutions from the get-go. Through offerings like HPV Vaccines, pap smears, thermal mammograms, vitamin levels checkups and even CA-125 cancer diagnostics checks, they seek to revolutionise what preventive care for women means. In continuing to raise funds and scale their growth, the team hopes to continue on their offline expansion journey to provide more women with necessary care across Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities in the near future. 

You can follow Proactive For Her here.

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