The March of Dimes Prematurity Campaign is a five-year, $75 million research, awareness and education campaign to help families have healthier babies. The Campaign includes:

• Funding research to find the causes of premature birth.
  
• Educating families about the warning signs of premature labor and what can be done to prevent it.
  
• Expanding access to health care coverage so that more women can get prenatal care.
  
• Helping health care providers learn ways to help reduce the risk of early delivery.
  
  

  Why the campaign?

• Prematurity is a silent crisis in America. In 2001, more than 476,000 babies were born prematurely. And prematurity is on the rise. It now affects one out of every eight babies born in the United States.
• Prematurity takes a severe toll on America’s families and strains our health care system. Each year, 100,000 children develop health problems because of their early births. And prematurity is the leading cause of death in the first month.
  
  

  Two major goals of the campaign

• Raising Awareness--The March of Dimes goal is to increase the proportion of people who consider prematurity a very serious problem from 35% to 60% by 2007.
• Reducing Risks--The March of Dimes goal is to reduce the rate of prematurity by 15%—from 11.9% of all births in 2001 to 10.1% in 2007.