Appearances & Press
Deb Discenza is a seasoned speaker to both parenting and professional audiences about a wide range of topics relating to parenting a preemie. She has given talks on everything from surviving the NICU, to navigating the school years, to addressing difficult parent advocacy issues.
Below, you can browse recent press releases, news coverage, and upcoming engagements with PreemieWorld.
If you are interested in having Deb speak at your event, please contact us.
Press Releases
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”
November 2, 2021, SALT LAKE CITY, UT 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.
PreemieWorld, LLC (PreemieWorld.com) is an educational products and research company. Founder and CEO Deb Discenza, parent to a special needs’ child, is the co-author of The Preemie Parent’s Survival Guide to the NICU and the publisher of two newsletters: preemieFAMILY for parents and preemiePRO for professionals. The PreemieWorld website has a wealth of information and resources for both parents and professionals in the global preemie community.
Sera Prognostics, Inc. is a leading health diagnostics company dedicated to improving the lives of women and babies through precision pregnancy care. Sera’s mission is to deliver early, pivotal information in pregnancy to physicians, enabling them to improve the health of their patients, resulting in reductions in the costs of healthcare delivery. Sera has a robust pipeline of innovative diagnostic tests focused on the early prediction of preterm birth risk and other complications of pregnancy. Sera’s precision medicine PreTRM® test reports to a physician the individualized risk of spontaneous premature delivery in a pregnancy, enabling earlier proactive interventions in women with higher risk. Sera Prognostics is located in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Preterm birth is defined as any birth before 37 weeks’ gestation and is the leading cause of illness and death in newborns. The 2020 March of Dimes Report Card shows that of approximately 3.8 million babies born annually in the United States, more than one in ten is born prematurely. Prematurity is associated with a significantly increased risk of major long-term medical complications, including learning disabilities, cerebral palsy, chronic respiratory illness, intellectual disability, seizures, and vision and hearing loss, and can generate significant costs throughout the lives of affected children. The annual health care costs to manage short- and long-term complications of prematurity in the United States were estimated to be approximately $25 billion for 2016.
The PreTRM® test, which is ordered by a medical professional, measures and analyzes proteins in the blood that are highly predictive of preterm birth.
Sera Prognostics, the Sera Prognostics logo, The Pregnancy Company, and PreTRM are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sera Prognostics, Inc in the U.S. and/or other countries.
Safe Harbor Statement
This press release contains “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements relating to enabling earlier proactive pregnancy care and achieving better outcomes for mothers and newborns; distributing a children’s book entitled Will Our Egg Hatch Early?; and the company’s strategic directives under the caption “About Sera Prognostics, Inc.” These “forward-looking statements” are based on management’s current expectations of future events and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially and adversely from those set forth in or implied by forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to: net losses, cash generation, and the potential need to raise more capital; revenues from the PreTRM test representing substantially all Company revenues to date; the need for broad scientific and market acceptance of the PreTRM test; a concentrated number of material customers; our ability to introduce new products; potential competition; our proprietary biobank; critical suppliers; the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on our operations, as well as the business or operations of third parties with whom we conduct business; estimates of total addressable market opportunity and forecasts of market growth; potential third-party payer coverage and reimbursement; new reimbursement methodologies applicable to the PreTRM test, including new CPT codes and payment rates for those codes; changes in FDA regulation of laboratory-developed tests; the intellectual property rights protecting our tests and market position; and other factors discussed under the heading “Risk Factors” contained in our Final Prospectus on Form S-1, which was filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on July 14, 2021, as well as any updates to those risk factors filed from time to time in our Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Annual Reports on Form 10-K, or Current Reports on Form 8-K. All information in this press release is as of the date of the release, and the Company undertakes no duty to update this information unless required by law.
References
1 Bryant, Allison S., et al. “Communicating with African-American Women Who Have Had a Preterm Birth about Risks for Future Preterm Births.” Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities, vol. 7, no. 4, 2020, pp. 671–677., https://doi.org/10.1007/s40615-020-00697-8.
2 Gur, Raquel E., et al. “The Disproportionate Burden of the Covid-19 Pandemic among Pregnant Black Women.” Psychiatry Research, vol. 293, 2020, p. 113475., https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2020.113475.
3 Onwuzurike, Chiamaka, et al. “Examining Inequities Associated with Changes in Obstetric and Gynecologic Care Delivery during the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19) Pandemic.” Obstetrics & Gynecology, vol. 136, no. 1, 2020, pp. 37–41., https://doi.org/10.1097/aog.0000000000003933.
Contact
Investor Contact
Peter DeNardo, CapComm Partners
peter@capcommpartners.com
+1 (415) 389-6400
Media Contact
Erich Sandoval, Lazar FINN
Erich.sandoval@finnpartners.com
+1 (917) 497-2867
The Preemie Parent’s Survival Guide to the NICU Now Reflects the Latest Clinical Advancements to Better Support Parents Worldwide
Published by PreemieWorld With Support from Prolacta Bioscience, the Updated Second Edition Provides Road Map for Parents of Preterm Infants
June 24, 2020, WASHINGTON, DC. PreemieWorld and Prolacta Bioscience are proud to announce publication of the updated second edition of The Preemie Parent’s Survival Guide to the NICU. Providing in-depth information for parents with a preterm infant in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), the Guide is a welcome resource for parents and caregivers alike.
“The knowledge gap for new parents of a premature infant is vast, and their journey is utterly uncharted,” says Deb Discenza, preemie mother and founder, CEO and publisher of PreemieWorld LLC.
For the past 11 years, The Preemie Parent’s Survival Guide to the NICU has served as a road map to parents suddenly faced with the challenging reality of having a premature infant. The Guide includes practical advice from both a clinical and emotional perspective, coupled with real-life highlights and perspectives from parents and healthcare professionals.
With the support of Prolacta Bioscience, the new edition incorporates critical information for parents based on clinical advancements during the last decade. This includes the vital role of optimal nutrition, especially for very low birth weight babies born weighing 2.5 pounds (1250 g) or less.
“For these premature infants, an exclusive human milk diet (EHMD) provides the added calories and protein to optimize the development of their brains and bodies,” Discenza says.
The guide, which is available in print and as a digital e-book, will be distributed to NICUs worldwide. It is also available for purchase online at PreemieWorld.com and on Amazon.
“It is an honor to help parents alongside Prolacta Bioscience,” Discenza says “I have witnessed firsthand the amazing outcomes that Prolacta’s 100% human milk-based fortifier achieved in a preemie boy born 18 weeks early. His mother fought to ensure her son received an EHMD including Prolacta’s fortifiers, and his clinical condition made a sharp turn in the positive direction. Unlike many preemies who receive cow milk-based fortifiers, he did not experience any of the comorbidities that can lead to complications and even death of a baby born on the cusp of viability. It was amazing.”
“Thanks to the advancements of Prolacta’s 100% human milk-based fortifiers, we are truly witnessing a change of the tide in terms of better outcomes for these babies,” Discenza says.
Preemie parents have an opportunity to advocate for their newborns regarding nutrition. The Preemie Parent’s Survival Guide to the NICU is one of the only books in the field that addresses the latest clinical advances in nutrition and preemie care.
“We’re honored to work with PreemieWorld to ensure that parents have the comprehensive information they need throughout their NICU journey,” said Scott Elster, CEO, Prolacta Bioscience. “Educating preemie parents has been a passion of Deb Discenza’s since her daughter was born, and we’re proud to support her work with the Second Edition of The Preemie Parent’s Survival Guide to the NICU.”
PreemieWorld, LLC (PreemieWorld.com) is an educational products and research company. Founder and CEO Deb Discenza, parent to a special needs’ child, is the co-author of The Preemie Parent’s Survival Guide to the NICU and the publisher of two newsletters: preemieFAMILY for parents and preemiePRO for professionals. The PreemieWorld website has a wealth of information and resources for both parents and professionals in the global preemie community.
Prolacta Bioscience® Inc. is a privately held life sciences company dedicated to Advancing the Science of Human Milk.® Prolacta is the world’s leading hospital provider of 100% human milk-based nutritional products, which have reduced complications and improved the health of more than 63,000 extremely premature infants globally. Prolacta is also exploring the therapeutic potential of human milk across a wide spectrum of human diseases, including applications for infants requiring surgery for congenital cardiac and gastrointestinal disorders. Operating the world’s first pharmaceutical-grade human milk processing facilities, Prolacta leads the industry with the highest quality and safety standards for the screening and testing of donor milk. Prolacta is a global company with headquarters in Duarte, California, and can be found online at prolacta.com, on Twitter at @prolacta, on Instagram at @prolacta_bioscience, on Facebook at facebook.com/prolacta, and on LinkedIn a linkedin.com/company/prolacta-bioscience/.
PreemieWorld Announces its Newest Premium Partner – Crystal Ball Health, LLC
September 7, 2019, WASHINGTON, DC. PreemieWorld is excited to announce its latest premium partner, Crystal Ball Health, LLC the entity in charge of the forthcoming Preemie Crystal Ball project.
“PreemieWorld sees a large void in this community,” comments Deb Discenza, “Specifically one around outcomes data and its use to increase research from preemie pregnancies to birth, to NICU to home and on up through the geriatric years. There is just so much we don’t know because the current research has such a small sample size, averaging in the hundreds versus the 16 million premature babies born globally each year. We have to do better.”
“I talk to former “preemies” all of the time, ones that are now in their 20s, 30s, 40s and older. As the pioneers in the explosion of neonatal medicine, they have had various struggles in life and this should be a wake-up call to the field of neonatology, especially as we save babies earlier and earlier, now at 22 weeks gestation. We have to do our due diligence, we have to do right by these patients not just for the short-term but also the long-term. Not doing so can have devastating effects on the patient, the family and society overall.”
Deb Discenza is the Founder, CEO and Publisher of PreemieWorld, LLC, an educational products and research company. She is the co-author of The Preemie Parent’s Survival Guide to the NICU and the Publisher of two newsletters Preemie Family for parents and Preemie Pro for professionals.
Crystal Ball Health, LLC (www.CrystalBallHealth.com) is devoted to creating better healthcare outcomes for patients. Its first project is Preemie Crystal Ball, focused on increasing data in the preemie community to improve short-term and long-term outcomes in premature babies as they are born and grow older.
PreePreemieWorld, LLC & Parenting Special Needs Magazine Announce Strategic Partnership
August 15, 2019, WASHINGTON, DC. PreemieWorld, LLC, and Parenting Special Needs Magazine are pleased to announce their strategic partnership.
Deb Discenza, Founder, CEO/Publisher of PreemieWorld, LLC, says, “This partnership highlights the ongoing challenges that exist in the preemie community and all communities with health conditions and more. We need the uplift that Parenting Special Needs Magazine has to share through resources, ideas and foster a tightly-knit community advocating for change across many areas of healthcare, therapeutics, education and transitioning into adulthood.”
Discenza continues, “The reality is that with better diagnostics and better awareness, the special needs sector has seen a pattern of growth. We need to do better by these children so they can grow up and thrive in whatever way possible.”
Chantai Snellgrove, Founder and Publisher of Parenting Special Needs Magazine agrees, commenting, “I believe in the ‘power of parenting’ and that by equipping and empowering parents with better information, tools, and resources, we can change, motivate, and improve not only our children’s lives, but our lives as well.”
Deb Discenza is the Founder, CEO and Publisher of PreemieWorld, LLC (www.PreemieWorld.com), an educational products and research company and the parent to a special needs child. She is the co-author of The Preemie Parent’s Survival Guide to the NICU and the Publisher of two newsletters PreemieFAMILY for parents and PreemiePRO for professionals. The PreemieWorld website has a wealth of information and resources for both parents and professionals in the global preemie community.
Chantai Snellgrove is the Founder and Publisher of Parenting Special Needs Magazine (www.parentingspecialneeds.org) as well as the parent of a child with special needs. The Parenting Special Needs Magazine and Parenting Special Needs website are resources that help guide parents raising a child with special needs by providing insights, strategies, and support. We also share wisdom from others’ life lessons in order to tackle the challenges and celebrate the joys of raising a child with special needs.
PreemieWorld, LLC & Council of International Neonatal Nurses Announce Strategic Partnership
August 1, 2019, WASHINGTON, DC. PreemieWorld, LLC and Council of International Neonatal Nurses are pleased to announce their strategic partnership.
Notes Deb Discenza, Founder, CEO/Publisher of PreemieWorld, LLC, “It is an honor to partner with the Council of International Neonatal Nurses (COINN). We are aligned in our goal to improve care for the tiniest and sickest of babies globally with the goal of improving long-term outcomes.”
Carole Kenner, CEO of the Council of International Neonatal Nurses (COINN) comments, “We are excited and honored to partner with PreemieWorld, LLC and its founder Deb Discenza. Parents as partners are critical to our work as neonatal nurses weather that work is practice, education, or research. We truly believe they are part of the healthcare team and contribute so much to our understanding of their baby.”
Deb Discenza is the Founder, CEO and Publisher of PreemieWorld, LLC (www.PreemieWorld.com), an educational products and research company and the parent to a special needs child. She is the co-author of The Preemie Parent’s Survival Guide to the NICU and the Publisher of two newsletters PreemieFAMILY for parents and PreemiePRO for professionals. The PreemieWorld website has a wealth of information and resources for both parents and professionals in the global preemie community.
Carole Kenner, PHD, RN, FAAN, FNAP, ANEF, is the CEO of the Council of International Neonatal Nurses (www.coinnurses.org) and has over 35 years’ neonatal/perinatal/pediatric experience. She is a graduate of the University of Cincinnati and Indiana University (USA) with the degrees in neonatal/perinatal nursing and nursing education. She has taught for 30 years, developed educational programs in the US and abroad. She is the author/editor over 30 textbooks and a four-time winner of publishing awards including the American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year. She received the Audrey Hepburn Award from Sigma Theta Tau for her international contributions to child welfare and the National Association of Neonatal Nurses (NANN) Lifetime Achievement Award. Carole is the Dean of the School of Nursing, Health, and Exercise Science at The College of New Jersey (USA) at present. She was the founding President of COINN.
Council of International Neonatal Nurses (www.coinnurses.org) or COINN is an exciting organization that represents nurses who specialize in the care of newborn infants and their families or have a special interest in this area of nursing. COINN, pronounced just like the money-currency or a coin – acts much like money as a method of exchange of information among countries. COINN is part of the growing international community of nurses that represents a resource for nurses that want to form a national or local organization, create guidelines for care or professional standards or just want advice on neonatal nursing issues.
PreemieWorld, LLC & Genetic Alliance Collaborate on Article for Neonatology Today
March 1, 2019, Washington, DC. Deb Discenza, PreemieWorld, LLC’s Founder and CEO, and Andrea Goodman, Genetic Alliance and Expecting Health’s Director of Engagement, have collaborated on an article published in the latest edition of Neonatology Today regarding the importance of patient registries.
Both Goodman and Discenza champion the value in-patient registries, specifically in the maternal and neonatal spaces. Notes Goodman, “Registries are becoming more and more valuable as we’re evolving to a healthcare landscape with patient-reported data. But we need true culture change. If we start by listening to and trusting patients, parents, and other stakeholders, we’ll get all the information we need about preferences and needs, directly from those most impacted.”
Discenza agrees, commenting, “The current studies in the preemie community have small sample sizes that do not live up to the conclusions being discovered. Always the same conclusion is met with, ‘More research is needed.’ We also need to broaden the research spectrum from only newborns and toddlers but also focus on the lifespan as a whole. The big picture is needed and again with a larger sample size involved. Only then can we truly create a real platform for discussion and change in care, medicine, and advocacy.”
The March edition of Neonatology Today can be downloaded at: http://www.neonatologytoday.net/newsletters/nt-mar19.pdf
Deb Discenza is the Founder, CEO and Publisher of PreemieWorld, LLC, an educational products and research company. She is the co-author of The Preemie Parent’s Survival Guide to the NICU and the Publisher of two newsletters Preemie Family for parents and Preemie Pro for professionals.
Andrea Goodman, MSW, MPH, is a leader in scaling maternal and child health programs and most passionate about finding solutions that meet families where they are. She serves on the Steering Committee of the National Coalition for Infant Health, as Senior Editorial Project Director for Neonatology Today, and as Director of Engagement for Expecting Health and Genetic Alliance, an organization with 32 plus years of experience serving the disease advocacy community through a people-centered lens. Genetic Alliance created the Platform for Engaging Everyone Responsibly (PEER), a unique solution for collecting health data directly from individuals and accommodates a variety of attitudes about data sharing and privacy.
NEONATOLOGY TODAY is the only peer-reviewed monthly newsletter available free to Neonatologists, Perinatologists, Neonatal Nurses, Neonatal Respiratory Care Specialists, Parents and anyone interested in the Neonatal Perinatal space. It aims to provide timely news and information to Neonatologists and Perinatologists regarding the care of newborns and the diagnosis and treatment of premature and/or sick infants.