In an average week in Wisconsin:
• 1,365 babies are born.

• 156 babies are born preterm.
~ MOD

This stat means that nearly 7% of all babies born in one week in Wisconsin are Premature. The medical expenses to keep Taylor and Alivya alive and healthy during their first year was about 1.5 million dollars, that $750,000 each. Assuming that their needs were average and their total cost was average for a preemie, we will spend $117 million on the premature babies born in just 1 week in Wisconsin alone. $6,084,000,000 per year in Wisconsin (based on these figures).

• Between 1995 and 2005, the rate of infants born preterm in Wisconsin increased more than 17%.
~MOD

It seems to me that when we ask for money to donate to researching methods to prevent prematurity and better means of keeping these babies healthy, a response I get frequently is, "why should I donate to this cause?" While I think that most people will donate to a cause that has more personally hit them, I think the most devastating part of prematurity is the population that is effected. It has been suggested that there is nothing more terrifying or devastating that loosing a baby or finding out that your baby is sick. Every preemie is given some likelihood of having severe lifetime consequences related to their prematurity. As parents, we make choices during the most chaotic moments of their early lives with a hope that they will be one of the lucky ones who doesn't suffer severely. These outcomes are often unknown for years after the actual birth. So I answer this question knowing that before I had preemies, I didn't know anything about the world of preemies. I didn't know that there were kids out there who had therapists coming to their homes several times a week very soon after birth until they were big enough to go to school. I never dreamed that there were people whose job it is to teach kids to eat, walk, roll over, etc. Before I had preemies, most pregnancies ended with healthy babies, I had no idea about the months spent in and out of the NICU holding on to every hope that my baby would live. NICUs were for the rare baby who came early and very high order multiples. I never thought there were children who survived on tube feedings and home oxygen therapy, and I certainly never considered that it would be one of mine. Some of our closest friends and family still have trouble understanding these things, even after seeing our children.

I ask people to donate money when they can to the March of Dimes, but for me, I hope they leave the conversation with a new understanding of what prematurity is, how prevalent it actually is, and why we need to support research to prevent it, whenever possible.

Prematurity is on the rise, we need to know why and how to stop it. Taylor and Alivya are very lucky. Their long term consequences become less noticable every year, many children are not so lucky.