So you want to buy a prenatal?
You could go to your local drugstore and peruse a soulless aisle of unpronounceable ingredient-filled capsules, choosing the one that appears the least offensive looking in context of your curated vanity. You could call your mother-in-law, who always knows best, but truth be told, has a pregnancy information IQ that does not go past the year 1984. Or, you could enter 2021 and come to the realization that there’s actually not one prenatal (or anything pregnancy related for that matter) that works for everyone.
I mean, if we can manage to buy different face masks to go with the changing seasons, can we not demand vitamins that are tailored to the different parts of our pregnancy?
Every great business starts with a problem and the founder of Perelel, Tori Thain Gioia and Alex Taylor, had a problem.
“My daughter, Imogen, was born with a cleft lip,” Tori tells us. “My husband and I were dealing with surgeons and all of the next steps… I was overwhelmed and just floored when I found out that the type of cleft Imogen had was often associated with a folic acid deficiency. That was really our first learning into the failings of the current offerings on the market.”
“Plus, we both felt that very few brands we’re truly resonating with us as new, millennial moms,” Alex continues. “We realized that there was a need to overhaul the prenatal vitamin market and serve women in a more holistic, transparent and supportive way.”
The duo set out with the idea to create a prenatal product range that supported each individual stage; with ingredients and dosages that adjust and optimize throughout your journey. After all, we’re changing so much throughout pregnancy. Why aren’t our vitamins and nutritional options changing, too?
Perelel offers convenient daily vitamin packets containing everything you need for each distinct stage of the motherhood journey: a Conception Support Pack for anyone thinking about or activating trying to conceive, targeted prenatal vitamin packs for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd trimester, as well as a Mom Multivitamin Pack for postpartum.
Tori, coming from a background in finance and strategy, and Alex, a content and branding expert, had no formal medical training between them so they went straight to the top when it came to getting their idea validated by the doctors they respected most.
“We were fortunate to have access to an amazing stable of doctors who quickly agreed that we had found a gap in the prenatal market and finally uncovered a way to truly support both women and babies more effectively through a more targeted prenatal vitamin protocol,” Alex said. Impressively, most of the doctors they spoke to in those early days eventually joined as founding advisers of the company and one of them, Dr. Banafsheh Bayati, is the brand’s own Medical Co-Founder. “We’re the first and only OBGYN-founded prenatal,” Alex says proudly.
Doctor-approved? Check. Actually different from what’s already on the market? Check. But one of the most important things to these founders (aside from the product itself being superior) is fulfilling a more ambitious promise: When you buy Perelel, you’re buying so much more than just a vitamin.
“We are made by moms for moms,” Tori says, “and our goal is to support women—those who are buying our products and the women across the U.S. This was core to what we were building before we even had a product. We wanted to do something to give back.” Since inception, for each new subscription sold, Perelel proudly donates a bottle of their prenatal formulation to a woman in need.
And they don’t stop there.
“When we realized there was such a dearth of credible content online, we knew we had to engage our doctors and experts to create a space filled with information that was both authoritative and accessible,” Alex says. Which is why Perelel is providing content straight from their doctors in addition to a better prenatal formulation and experience.
“Oftentimes when you start to go down the Google rabbit hole, you’ll end up on a forum where just about anyone from anywhere can make claims about really important information as it relates to your pre and postnatal health. To us, it was vital that all of this content actually come straight from our doctors.” Rest assured, any content on Perelel is exclusive and completely expert-backed and doctor-produced. Even their customer service responses.
So what’s next for Perelel?
“It’s about continuing to support our woman throughout all of her reproductive milestones. We’re there for her during her trying to conceive stage, pregnancy, postpartum, motherhood. And we’re determined to continue supporting her as she grows beyond these stages. In the meantime, we’re committed to building a community that welcomes all women—wherever they might be on their journey—to connect with one another, a space where they feel supported and never alone.”
You can shop Perelel at perelelhealth.com.
