| To the editor:
As a long time resident of Springfield/Nixa, I am honored to chair the 2015 March for Babies.
I moved to Missouri just after my own son was born two months prematurely so I understand the medical and emotional challenges of having a preterm baby.At Phoenix Home Care, one area of specialty is providing private duty nursing services to infants and children born with special health care needs. Phoenix currently provides 17,000+ hours per week of private duty nursing services throughout Missouri and Kansas.
From CenteringPregnancy programs to smoking cessation initiatives to our recently launched Prematurity Research Center at Washington University, the March of Dimes Missouri Chapter is making great progress in the fight to end premature birth.
This year, thanks to increased public education and awareness, the March of Dimes Premature Birth Report Card saw Missouris preterm birth rate decrease from 13.3% in 2005 to 11.3% in 2014. The national preterm birth rate also fell to 11.4% the lowest in 17 years meeting the federal Healthy People 2020 goal seven years early.
Despite this progress, Missouri and the nation received a C on the report card.The U.S. still has one of the highest rates of preterm birth rates of any industrialized country one in nine babies is born too soon.
I hope you will be an involved and active fundraiser for March for Babies and encourage you to ask your family, friends, and others to support you. You can ask them personally or send them creative e-mails through your own page on the March of Dimes fundraising tool:marchforbabies.org.
Thank you for supporting Missouri babies and families. I hope you will join us in celebrating the fact that more than four million babies were born in the United States last year and the March of Dimes helped every one of them through research, education, vaccines and breakthroughs. I am confident that the Springfield community can, and will, join together for stronger, healthier babies in 2015! Your efforts truly do make a difference!
Gwen Beebe, vice president of business development/regional operations vice president, Phoenix Home Care, Inc.
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