Just as we met the challenge of polio with determination – and succeeded in defeating this threat to our children’s health, so are we determined to win the fight against prematurity.

For reasons largely unknown, more than 460,000 babies are born prematurely in the U.S. every year, many so small that their lives hang in the balance.  These premature babies can suffer lifelong consequences such as mental retardation, blindness, chronic lung disease and cerebral palsy. While most survive, some are so tiny that doctors can’t save them.

The problem of prematurity has always been an important target for our mission to save babies because of its close relationship to birth defects, infant mortality and low birthweight.  However, the alarming increase in premature births over the last decade has prompted the March of Dimes to launch a new campaign to raise public awareness of the problem of prematurity and, ultimately, to find ways to reduce the occurrence of premature birth.

Since 1984, the foundation has funded at least 200 grants grants related to low birthweight and prematurity totaling more than $13 million.  In 1998, the March of Dimes began its six-year Perinatal Epidemiology Research Initiative, investing more than $5.7 million in research to study how factors such as stress, infection, genetics and environment may trigger preterm labor.

No one is working harder than the March of Dimes to fight premature birth.  We will continue the fight until we reach the day when every baby is born healthy.