Walk America 2007: Why I Will Participate in the March of Dimes

It's that time of year again. Its the time of year when all our co-workers and friends begin asking us to sponsor them in their "causes." It can become very over-whelming and its hard to give when we don't understand what we are giving to. Walk America is a fund-raising event for the March of Dimes. I remember growing up raising money for the March of Dimes to help babies. I really didn't understand what they did.

As I got older, I learned that the March of Dimes helped save premature babies. All to often when people think of premature babies, we think of the children that are born severely early. Not all premature babies are born at such an earlier time in pregnancy. With the increase in planned cesareans and planned inducements, we are now seeing an increase in late pre-term babies. These are babies that are born between 34-36 week gestation. These babies can have respiratory problems, problems learning to eat, inability to maintain their body temperature, and/ or jaundice.

My daughter was a 36 week baby that had respiratory problems. Her issues caused her to remain in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) for ten days. The March of Dimes website was able to provide me with online information plus stories from other parents that had similar problems.

The March of Dimes contributes more than just a website. It has an actual NICU family support that works in local hospitals to help parents whose babies are in the NICU. They also conduct research to the causes of premature birth along with educating pregnant women on the risk of premature birth. The March of Dimes also works vigorously to educate the businesses about pre-mature births. By showing businesses, the cost of health care for a premature baby, this encourages workplaces to not only educate their employees about the risk of premature birth but also to change their workplaces to be more pregnancy friendly. The March of Dimes also helps support professional education about pre-mature births so that our doctors and nurses are educated on prevention of infant mortality, birth defects and preterm birth.

Many people assume that pre-mature babies are a rarity. This is completely false- one in eight babies are born prematurity. This is half a million babies a year. This number is increasing so that more and more babies are being born too early. Unfortunately, although there are several risk facts for premature births, there is no one cause. In nearly half of the premature births, there is no obvious reason for the prematurity. I was surprised when I had my daughter that out of the 15 moms in my moms groups- 3 others had children that were born prematurely. Truthfully, this can happen to any pregnant woman at any time. I urge you to join the fight against premature babies by either sponsoring a walker or walking yourself.