Sera Prognostics Announces Collaboration To Help Underserved Communities Make Informed Decisions About Prenatal Health
Partnership to include distribution of a children’s book with essential prenatal healthcare information and support in the form of pregnancy/NICU “care boxes”
Salt Lake City, Nov. 2, 2021 (PR NEWSWIRE) —Sera Prognostics Inc., The Pregnancy Company® (NASDAQ: SERA), focused on improving maternal and neonatal health by providing innovative pregnancy biomarker information to doctors and patients, today announced a partnership with PreemieWorld, GLO Preemies, and the Alliance for Black NICU Families, leading organizations all geared to empowering and supporting families impacted by preterm birth.
“We are committed to help address the healthcare disparities that disproportionately affect underserved communities, particularly among African Americans,” said Gregory C. Critchfield, M.D., M.S., Chairman, and CEO of Sera Prognostics. “The long-term goal of this collaboration is to help educate and stimulate conversations between patients, their families, and their physicians to improve individualized assessment for preterm birth risk, as a way to enable earlier proactive pregnancy care and achieve better outcomes for mothers and newborns.”
According to a study published in 2020, African American women in the U.S. are 50% more likely to deliver prematurely when compared to Caucasian women.1 Identified factors include discrepancies in access to information about prenatal healthcare in general and preterm birth in particular. The pandemic has only compounded the issue—increased economic distress has resulted in even more reduced access to routine prenatal healthcare services.2,3
“African Americans are at a high risk for preterm birth, and this collaboration is designed to develop resources specifically targeted to help underserved populations,” said Ashley Randolph, founder of GLO Preemies and co-founder of the Alliance for Black NICU Families. “Of primary importance is getting information about prenatal healthcare and preterm birth to women who feel their concerns are not heard—and giving them a voice to advocate for themselves.”
The initial phase of the communications partnership includes distributing a children’s book entitled Will Our Egg Hatch Early? In an appendix following the story, the book focuses on risk factors for preterm birth, suggestions for initiating doctor-patient conversations around the subject, and information about support resources and the availability of Sera Prognostics’ PreTRM® test.
The PreTRM® test is the only broadly clinically validated, commercially available blood-based biomarker test that provides an early, accurate, and individualized risk prediction for spontaneous preterm birth in asymptomatic singleton pregnancies. Ordered by medical professionals, the test empowers physicians to better identify, during the 19th or 20th week of pregnancy, women who are at increased risk for premature delivery. This early knowledge enables these women and their doctors to develop personalized intervention plans to bring their pregnancies as close to full-term as possible.
Why is Sera Prognostics offering important health education in a children’s book? “Because a children’s book can go where nothing else can,” said Deb Discenza, CEO of PreemieWorld, an educational products and research company, and co-author of The Preemie Parent’s Survival Guide to the NICU. The books will be distributed initially to Black/African American families as part of care boxes and other already existing service offerings of organizations like those led by Randolph and Discenza. A Spanish-language version is also planned.