Please Help A Baby

Adam Birkett could use a dollar bill for a blanket when he was born

Samantha survived the difficulties of a premature birth and is now a vibrant 3 year old!

By Greg Birkett, General Manager, The Dubuque Advertiser, Dubuque, IA

Autumn... time for the leaves to fall, time for the crops to come out of the field, time to button up the house for the winter ahead. Seems like a strange time to think about small babies, but that is what we need to do in November. The March of Dimes has named November National Prematurity Awareness Month and they are working hard to inform the public about this national health issue.

Prematurity is the nation's leading killer of newborns, says Dr. Jennifer Howse. "It has now reached epidemic proportions.? Nearly 500,000 babies are born prematurely in the U.S. every year. All these babies come into the world too early. Every one of them is unique and special, and every baby's story is different.

Just like my daughter, Samantha. She was born, along with her twin brother, Adam, at just 26 weeks. Adam was born a whopping eleven and a half ounces and Samantha was only one pound thirteen ounces. They were forced to be born early as my wife Sherri had developed preeclampsia, the cause of which is unknown and the only cure is delivery. We were hoping to delay the delivery, but all efforts failed and a c-section was performed and out came forty ounces of babies.

Adam was so small that he could use a dollar bill for a blanket and my wedding ring slid easily up his entire leg. He struggled to survive and grew to over one pound and was doing phenomenally well when at the age of 25 days he succumbed to a rare pneumonia. Although his life was brief he touched many people with his struggle. We were thankful to have even the short time with him that we had.

Samantha, on the other hand, has done well right from the start. It almost made us feel bad that we were worried so much about Adam and paid so much more attention to him, but we just knew she would do well. She was a little trooper right from the start One of my many neo-natal intensive care (NICU) memories were of her hanging her little leg out over the blanket they had her wrapped in.

Samantha is now a vibrant little three year old that yells at her big brother Ben and bosses all of us around. We are very fortunate that she does not appear to have any long-tern effects of prematurity that many children suffer from. These are the issues that the March of Dimes is focusing on.

SAPA, PaperChain and the national, regional and state free paper associations have agreed to help the March of Dimes spread the word about the prematurity issue by promoting National Prematurity Awareness Month. We are thankful for the research that the March of Dimes has been doing in the area of prematurity and we know it has helped our family and so many others as well. Will you help the March of Dimes spread the word?