‘NVP Minds’, led by Associate Professor Fiona Challacombe, an academic and registered clinical psychologist from the University of Oxford, aims to support women suffering from Hyperemesis Gravidarum (HG), a debilitating condition that causes severe nausea and vomiting in pregnancy. HG affects 30,000 pregnancies in the UK annually, with up to 50% of sufferers report considering ending the pregnancy as a direct result of the condition due to the severe physical and psychological toll.

The other winning proposal, ‘HearHer’, developed by Dr. Faith Martin, a clinical and health psychologist and Senior Lecturer at the University of Bath, targets maternal mental wellbeing for the over 2 million mothers in the UK supporting children with mental health or developmental challenges. This group is known to experience chronic stress and emotional exhaustion whilst supporting their children to navigate specialist services, such as Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) or Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) support, which can take years to access and there is almost no structure psychological support for themselves.