Launched in MA but relocated to Maine, Prapela is a health and wellness company focused to infant health and anchored in work undertaken at and licensed from Harvards Wyss Institute, at UMass Memorial Medical Center and Mass General Hospital. With part of the management team located in JLabs Lowell, the firm is developing consumer products and medical devices featuring Stochastic Vibrotactile Stimulation (SVS) to improve infant health. SVS is a patented, gentle vibration that is sleep-cycle friendly and non-habit forming. Peer-review medical journals report SVS significantly improves relaxation, breathing and heart-rate in hyperirritable babies and preemies with apnea of prematurity. Prapela's initial focus is on opioid-exposed newborns at home and babies diagnosed and treated for neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) in the hospital: babies born addicted to opiods
