Prematurity Awareness Day

It’s Prematurity Awareness Month and today people around the world, including me, are blogging to spread the word on this crisis.

Every year, one in eight babies are born too soon in America. In our country, the rate of prematurity has increased by 36% in the last 25 years. I don’t know about you, but that is a very frightening and disturbing number for what is considered a developed country. Around the world, 13 million babies are born premature and one million die because they were born too soon. Premature births usually have no cause and hit every ethnicity and socioeconomic status. No one is immune.

Babies who do survive can be faced with a number of health problems including blindness, chronic lung disease, mental retardation, and cerebral palsy. It’s time we stand up and fight for the little ones who can’t fight for themselves.

This issue is very near and dear to my heart. My nephews, Blake and Jacob, were born at 24 weeks in 2003. There was no cause for why my sister-in-law went into labor so soon. Jacob passed away 2 months later from complications. He will always be in my heart. Blake is now a 6 year old beautiful boy, but he’s had his share of surgeries and medical issues that I believe no child should ever have to go through. We need to find a way to end prematurity!

Today, if you feel compelled, I would ask that you make a donation to the March of Dimes. It can be as little as $5. Every little bit helps to save babies. March of Dimes is a great organization that supports research to not only find a way to prevent prematurity but oral clefts, eye diseases, and advances in heart surgeries. They funded research to create the polio vaccine and education to decrease neural tube births by folic acid awareness. I love this organization.

If it’s not feasible to make a financial donation, I ask that you do this: Pray! Say a prayer of thanks for the healthy babies that you know in your life. That is a blessing and a miracle in itself. And then I would ask that you say a prayer for all the babies out there that are fighting for their lives. Pray for healing, pray for life! Say a prayer for their parents – for energy for the sleepless nights they will endure in the NICU, for peace as they have no control over their baby’s next breath, and for courage and strength to make it through each day. Prayer is very very powerful thing.

I pray for the day that all babies will be born healthy.