Prematurity
Toolkit                      
 

Did you know that pregnant women should want to stay pregnant for nine months? They certainly should, because preventing premature birth saves babies’ lives and improves the future for families and communities.  Premature birth is the leading cause of infant death in the United States.  Even babies who are born only a few weeks from their due date have twice the risk of death than infants born at full-term.  Unfortunately, Kentucky has one of the highest rates of premature births in the nation.

In 2006 the March of Dimes, Johnson & Johnson Pediatric Institute, L.L.C, and the Kentucky Department for Public Health formed Healthy Babies are Worth the Wait: A Prematurity Prevention Partnership.  The goals of this partnership include lowering the premature birth rate in Kentucky and raising public awareness of the issue of premature birth.

In 2007 the Barren River District Health Department received a March of Dimes grant to work with the Prematurity Prevention Partnership in order to produce a toolkit for community action leaders.  This toolkit is user-friendly, and it consists of a guidebook, a CD complete with a PowerPoint presentation, a flipchart version of the presentation, and additional handouts.   The March of Dimes grant will make it possible to print 200 prematurity toolkits and give them to people throughout the Barren River District and three other areas of the state.  

It is our hope that local volunteers will use the toolkit to help us spread the word about the problem of premature births and how to prevent them from happening when possible. Anyone living in the area served by the Barren River District Health Department who is concerned about the health of mothers and babies and would like to take action to help prevent premature births can get a toolkit to use in their community.  Our goal is to help make others aware that prematurity is a common, costly, and serious problem, and there are things that community members can do to help prevent avoidable premature births. Our message is that Healthy Babies are Worth the Wait!  Please join us in sharing this news!

PROMOTE • PROTECT • PREVENT

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