As many of you may remember from previous years, November is National Prematurity Awareness month. As the aunt of three preemies and sister of two others (twins born earlier this year); it's a big deal to me.
Since my first nephew was born prematurely in 2004, I've learned a lot about the issue and come into contact with hundreds of families that have been affected. Their experiences always touch me because I can relate. I've been there. I've done that. And I know first hand that it never gets any easier, whether it's your first NICU experience or your 5th.
Walking through the doors of a NICU is like walking into an entirely new world. Nothing is familiar and nothing is guaranteed. When you're lucky... you walk out with a moderately healthy baby a few months later. When you're not... you walk out broken hearted. No matter what happens inside those doors, though, you never walk out the same as you went in.
The triumphs and set backs you have experienced, the bonds you have made, and the losses that have occurred around you, touch you in ways that you will never forget. You'll wonder for years if the little baby next to yours beat the odds that were stacked against him, or if his parents mourn for the baby that simply couldn't keep fighting.
You realize, maybe for the first time upon walking through those doors, just how fragile life really is. As hard as it is, at some point you also realize that you've been given a gift.
Yesterday, the National Center for Health Statistics released a report indicating that the "extraordinarily high number of babies born too soon explains why the nation has an infant death rate significantly higher when compared to Europe."
In the United States, 6.9 percent of every 1,000 live births will result in death before the age of one. That is twice as many as in countries such as Sweden and Norway. When compared side by side, the National Center for Health Statistics found that, if the number of pre-term births were the same in the United States as in Sweden, the infant mortality rate in the United States would drop to 3.9 deaths per every 1,000 live births. We are, according to the CDC, 30th in infant mortality rates, lagging far behind other developed countries.
The statistics are alarming, but for most... they are simply just statistics. For those who have not been there, infant mortality is often a foreign concept. They know that babies die. But having never seen it or had to worry about it, it's simply a statistic. It's not something they can put a face too. Or a name too. It's not a baby they have touched or held in their arms. It's one of those abstract facts of life. It happens, but never to you or those around you.
It's sad. And maybe you even participate in Walk America or donate to organizations fighting to make a difference for those babies. But the reality is still unimaginable to you.
It's not unimaginable or abstract for more than half a million families in the United States each year. Their children were born early and, even when the odds were in their favor because of advances in technology or gestational age, they wondered and they worried if their baby would be the latest in a long line of lives lost.
Every year, I challenge you to get involved in some way, be it through reading about prematurity, participating in Walk America, or making a donation to an organization fighting to save lives. This year, I will challenge you as well but not to donate, to read or even to participate.
This year, I'd like to challenge each and every one of you to sit down and talk with a family that has been through the NICU nightmare. Ask them about their child's experience. Ask them what they remember... and what they wish they could forget. Ask them about the children that didn't make it and the families they came into contact with. Ask them to help you put a name and a face to the statistics that you have seen, but not yet experienced.
And when you've done all of that, reread those statistics. Chances are, you will never ever be able to forget them again.
*For more information on Prematurity Awareness and what is being done please visit the March of Dimes.
