November is prematurity awareness month. This is a time to raise awareness for the impacts and risks of preterm birth and advocating for prenatal and maternal health.
Preterm birth affects one of every 10 babies born in the US. While prematurity is acknowledged the whole month of November, specifically November 17th is World Prematurity Day.
To honor prematurity awareness month, Coffee County Central High School’s FBLA club has made their service project a mission to help a local family, who recently had a set of triplets born prematurely. The mother is Monica Barton, who is a former teacher at North Coffee and Deerfield. The father is a CCCHS alumni, former FBLA Officer, and local business manager.
The Bartons had the triplets at 26 weeks, and stayed in the hospital for 126 days in total. After 18 weeks back and forth in the hospital, all three babies are now home. The babies are all healthy at four months old, and their parents are happy to be home.
FBLA decided to help these three premature babies by collecting items for them as well as their parents from November 6th to the 17th. Everyone can help by bringing in diapers (sizes 2 and up), food and Amazon gift cards, wipes, and any other items people are willing to donate.
