Mother’s Day on Sunday marks the launch of an innovative program to improve mothers’ health by leveraging the power of soccer fandom.
The World Health Organization says maternal mortality rates are unacceptably high. According to the WHO fact sheet released last month, in 2023, she died daily from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth.
What doctors, public health officials and community workers are trying to tackle is a challenge.
Morad Fareed, a former professional soccer player, believes that through her love for sports, she can improve her maternal health.
Fareed’s created FC Mother is a community platform that combines support networks with predictions and new mothers. The organization aims to transform global soccer clubs into platforms to improve public health. This is a broader concept he calls “H sports” or healing sports.
“What we did was unite the world of mothers’ health, use football to distribute it, celebrate it and use it as a vehicle to bet on it,” Fareed said.
The organization is launching what it calls the “World Cup of Healing.” This is a competition to measure the health outcomes of participating women grouped by reported soccer fandoms.
Mothers access services and connections via the FC Mother Platform and answer regular survey questions that assess their well-being. Improve the progress of the fuel team.
FC’s mother has received prominent support from researchers in the Harvard School of Medicine and Harvard University School of Public Health, as well as team doctors at Real Madrid, Manchester United and Arsenal FC.
FC mothers are leveraging the vast social infrastructure, community and competitive spirit of soccer to change maternal health.
The first contest will begin on Sunday and will be held for 60 days in the FIFA Club World Cup final in July. The trial run pits a related fanbase of three Brazilian football clubs and three mothers to three mothers against San Diego FC’s mother, Gotham FC’s mother and Omaha Union’s mother.
FC mothers ranked 48 World Cup countries by maternal health outcomes, based on data from the University of Washington Health Indicators and Evaluation Institute. The Institute’s global disease report places the United States in 44th, lower than other developed countries in the world based on lifespans lost due to maternal health outcomes. Brazil ranks 46th.
Team USA, the first Health Results Competition, is coached by Jenny Joseph, founder of Common Sense Birth.
The goal of Fareed is to gamify the maternal health of the community through football and prove that it can increase quality lifespan (Qualys) in both mothers and children.
Qualy is a year of full health life and is an indicator used by major public health organizations. It is measured in a survey that reports self-reported mental and emotional health, pain levels, and other health areas to respondents.
Although FC mothers leave the clinicians to treat pregnancy, they can produce up to 10 high quality years for mothers and their offspring for research showing perinatal mental health and robust social support.
“The social determinants of health are the next frontier in maternal health and public health in general,” Fareed said. “It’s not your doctor who calls you. It’s the community around you. It’s the daily interaction you live in your life, promoting stress levels, mental health and emotional well-being.”
Like other sports, the FC Mother’s leaderboard features statistics from competing teams, but also offers users the opportunity to access support instantly from other moms. These features are available from the FC Mother App or Meta’s WhatsApp.
However, FC’s mother is not a charity. Fareed is intended to make it a for-profit venture. He believes that funds, which are blessed with businesses, professional sports, family offices and donors, are interested in investing in a platform that provides health improvements for some of the current costs of medical intervention.
The FC mother hopes the kickoff competition will provide a proof of concept and will convince 40 football clubs to participate in the HE maternal health outcomes competition during the 2026 World Cup.
– CNBC’s Jessica Golden contributed to this report.
