World Prematurity Day, A Recognition

For 1 in 10 of all births in Wisconsin from 2022 to 2024, ushering a new baby into the world brought a unique set of worries for new mothers and risks for their newborns–premature birth.

In a premature or preterm birth, the baby is born before 37 weeks of pregnancy have been completed, meaning some critical, in-uterine development has not yet finished before the baby is born. It’s the leading cause of newborn death and disability.

The list of known and suspected risk factors for preterm birth is extensive, ranging from ethnicity, pre-existing medical conditions, and age of the mother to lifestyle and environmental factors like stress. 

In the Badger state, although the overall premature birth rate was 10.1% from 2022-2024, the rate for Menominee County was a whopping 18.7%. During that same period, over fifteen percent (15.5) of babies born to non-Hispanic Black women were preterm, followed by 14.5% of babies born to American Indian/Alaskan Native mothers. 

Premature birth often requires a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) stay for the baby, with evidence of NICU admission rates as high as 90% for babies born before 34 weeks. Advances in medicine over the last few decades have meant the survival of more babies born extremely prematurely. A baby boy born in the UK four years ago at the gestational age of 21 weeks and 1 day is thought to be the world’s most premature baby to survive. 

Although staff often try to accommodate parents, mothers are usually discharged from the hospital before their premature newborns, making it difficult for a mother who is also recovering to visit, hold and care for her newborn. That is why some NICU units welcome volunteers to hold babies and give them human interaction. You can check with your local hospital to see if they have a NICU volunteer program.

As we recognize World Prematurity Day, we honor the mothers, medical staff, and volunteers who fight for the precious lives of premature babies. As this precious story from a grandmother of premature twins illustrates, it takes a community to help a family through a premature birth.