3 Questions for Yeda: »We Help Women Feel Free Again«

With your start-up Yeda, you are working on a solution for a socially taboo topic – pelvic floor weakness, which can lead to incontinence and other problems in everyday life. How widespread is this »invisible« condition?

Very widespread. I was very shocked when I first heard the figure: every second woman suffers from pelvic floor dysfunction at some point in her life. Childbirth or the menopause can cause it. Many female athletes also have problems. Just being a woman is enough to increase your risk. However, most women have learned not to talk about it, to wear panty liners and to accept the condition silently.

The pelvic floor can be imagined as a network of muscles, ligaments and connective tissue. This network holds the organs in place, including the bladder. In the event of dysfunction, the network is unable to perform adequately under stress – for example, when jumping or lifting weights, sneezing or coughing. The organs and bladder descend and urine may leak.

Pelvic floor weakness is a huge social problem that we hardly ever talk about. It has an enormous impact on women’s quality of life, including their performance. Many are no longer able to work properly and develop psychological problems. However, the available solutions have not been innovated for decades because it is a taboo subject affecting women, even though the effects impact society as a whole.

With Yeda, you want to launch an innovative device that will remedy this situation. You call it a »bra« for the pelvic floor – what exactly can this invention hold up to?

We combine two existing therapeutic approaches. On the one hand, there are training devices for strengthening the muscles. However, during the menopause, the connective tissue is often affected, which cannot be trained at all. Then there are the widely used pessaries, which are silicone moulds in various shapes that offer immediate support against incontinence, but are static and not really easy to use. Women are often sent to the clinic for fitting, and when their bodies change, the device no longer fits.

Yeda offers the immediate support of a pessary and at the same time motivates women to train their pelvic floor, if this is still possible. Its shape and function were developed based on the experience of my co-founder, Dr Kaven Baessler, who has been a practicing urogynaecologist for 20 years and heads two pelvic floor centres in Berlin. We also work closely with affected women who share their experiences with us.

The big advantage over a conventional pessary is that our silicone ring is inflatable and individually adjustable. It is very easy for women to insert vaginally. They feel the support immediately, can adjust the pressure until it feels comfortable – and then go about their daily lives without worry. It is a simple mechanical solution that also relieves the connective tissue and ligaments, allowing them to regenerate.

You can think of Yeda as a kind of cushion that supports the pelvic floor network. This prevents the bladder and other organs from sagging and stops urine from leaking. That’s why we refer to it as a »bra«. Women decide whether they want to wear it for jogging like a sports bra or all day long. And they can easily remove the silicone ring when they no longer need it. We help women feel free again.

You are planning to start series production in 2026 and want to distribute Yeda internationally. How will the start-up develop over the next few years here at Potsdam Science Park if everything goes according to plan?

We gave the first prototype to women to test it out, and then we made improvements based on their feedback. Our improved prototype with a hand pump is now going into industrial production and will initially be sold in small quantities starting in 2026. We’re also going to roll out our app, which women can use to train their pelvic floor.

We are committed to ongoing enhancement of Yeda, integrating sensor technology and enabling biofeedback via the app – for example, measuring lower abdominal pressure or temperature, which is particularly interesting for women going through the menopause or for measuring fertility. The next version will have an electric miniature pump that can be controlled via the app. Our hope is that many women will donate their data anonymously so that we can build a large database on pelvic floor health in women for research purposes.

Here at Potsdam Science Park, we want to grow in the long term and rent more space. We plan to expand into the US market, but decided to keep our production and all our engineering expertise in Golm. This means that Yeda remains Made in Germany, which is a seal of quality.

From the very beginning, the location management at Potsdam Science Park has been very helpful in giving us an overview of funding opportunities and gaining a foothold in Brandenburg. The office rents at GO:IN are also affordable for young companies. In the future, it would be great to build our own production hall here, but first we must address many other milestones.

Further information can be found on the Yeda website.

This blog and the projects carried out by Standortmanagement Golm GmbH at Potsdam Science Park are funded by the European Union and the State of Brandenburg.