Mother-Child Study Participants: Help us enroll more healthy mothers!

We need your help to spread the word that we are enrolling mothers who do NOT have an autoimmune disease. In the coming months, you will receive an information packet to forward to a fellow mother who may be interested in helping out with the study. Consider asking your friends, neighbors, and co-workers to join in our research.

In collaboration with Blood Centers of the Pacific/Blood Systems Research Institute (San Francisco, California), Central Blood Bank/Institute for Transfusion Medicine (Pittsburg, Pennsylvania), and UC Berkeley School of Public Health (Berkeley, California), we are studying the possible role of pregnancy in autoimmune diseases. The immune system keeps the body healthy. An autoimmune disease may arise when the immune system attacks itself, making a person sick. In order to do this research, it is helpful to study the genes of mothers with an autoimmune disease (such as lupus or rheumatoid arthritis) and mothers without an autoimmune disease.

Criteria for enrollment

1. You and your biological son or daughter do not have an autoimmune disease
2. He or she is willing to participate and is at least 7 years old (mothers of all ages are eligible)

What is involved

Participating mothers and children will each be asked to complete and return a consent form and brief questionnaire and provide a small saliva sample.

Participation is quick and easy and can be completed by mail! You do not have to live in San Francisco to participate in this study. Enrollment paperwork and sample kits are mailed to study participants’ homes so they can complete them at their own convenience and return them to us via mail. There is no cost to participate and all information is kept confidential.