Yesterday millions of people around the world joined together to show how much they care about protecting the health of babies. World Prematurity Day on November 17 aims to create a surge of awareness around the critical and rising problem of premature birth.
Our first daughter, Elsie, was born extremely premature at 24 weeks gestation. I read in the Herald Sun on the weekend that 200 babies are born at 24 weeks in Australia and New Zealand each year. Half of them will survive. Of those, a third will suffer severe disabilities. I read the paragraph out to Anthony. His reply?
‘We know we got a really good deal.’
We got a good deal because of the education that is available in our country (to us and the medical profession here), because there was medicine available to help develop her lungs and we know about simple tools like ‘kangaroo care’ where she was placed, skin on skin, on our chests.
I’m joining in (albeit a day late) to help raise awareness of a problem – a global problem that is the number one killer of newborn babies.
I put together this little movie starring Elsie. It is my hope that by creating awareness, we can work towards more research and more funding to save lives and give more families hope, and if possible, a really good deal.
Thanks for watching.
Writing by Larissa Patton 