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WPEC-TV CBS12 News :: News - Treasure Coast News - March of Dimes highlights plight of preemies in Port St. Lucie

March of Dimes highlights plight of preemies in Port St. Lucie

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. -- 500 people came out to Port St. Lucie early Saturday to March for Babies...many pushing their miracles along with them.

The annual walk raising more than 88-thousand dollars for the March of Dimes' efforts to prevent babies from being born prematurely.

Dr. Jennifer Chandler, OB, ST. LUCIE MEDICAL CENTER: Babies that don't go to full term have increased respiratory problems. They don't feed well. They tend to have a nursery stay for infections more often.

They're issues Amanda Cunningham worried about when she went into early labor with her son, Sean, delivering him at 32 weeks...instead of 40.

AMANDA: He was born on a Monday morning at 6:30 in the morning at four pounds, one ounce and was in the NICU for three weeks.

Sean stayed in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit because he had trouble eating.

But everything else ended up developing well... Partly because of research funded by the March of Dimes.

Doctors being able to give Amanda medication to help Sean while he was still in the womb.

AMANDA: I think with the doctor's knowledge and the NICU nurses knowledge is why he is the way he is today. You would never know.>

It's estimated that a half million babies are born too soon each year. But thanks to education by the March of Dimes, the premature birth rate has decreased over the last few years.

Early intervention, good nutrition and actually pre-planning ... those early stages can help really really prevent birth defects.

And that can help prevent premature labor.

Research funded from the walks also led to the initiative to provide folic acid to prenatal mothers... And the discovery of new treatments to cure vision defects and provide better survival rates for newborns with heart conditions.

DR. CHANDLER: People think that they can deliver at 36, 37 weeks and that's close enough, the baby's nine months, but it's not ready yet. It's not ready to come out. You can't rush it.

In the next two weeks there are three more "March for Babies" walks in Boca Raton, Stuart and Lake Worth.
March of Dimes highlights plight of preemies in Port St. Lucie

Tuesday, May 1 2012, 02:34 PM EDT

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