World Prematurity Day Events: November 15-19
World Prematurity Day is this Sunday, November 17, and beginning Friday, November 15, organizations around the world will be highlighting the critical challenge of addressing premature birth. Groups will publish new evidence and convene discussions to build awareness and accelerate action on premature birth in many ways.
Highlights of this year’s commemoration of World Prematurity Day include the following:
- New research on preterm birth will be published on November 15 in the journals Pediatric Research and Reproductive Health
- Every Woman Every Child is hosting a discussionat UN headquarters in New York and organized by USAIDand the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Zambia on November 15. The discussion will highlight cost effective solutions, new research, support for families and the Every Newborn action plan, which is set to launch in May 2014. Although RSVPs may no longer be accepted, you can follow the discussion on Twitter, using the hashtags #worldprematurityday and#EveryNewborn
- The Twitter discussion will continue at #worldprematurityday as part of a 24-hour global Twitter relay on November 15-16. Other Twitter events will include a chat on November 15, using the hashtag #B2Soon, when leading researchers to discuss evidence that builds on the groundbreaking 2012 Born Too Soon report. On November 16, The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health and Every Woman Every Child will convene a Twitter chat from from 9-10am EST that focused on the Every Newborn Action Plan and hosted by Mary Kinney @maryvkinney
- On Tuesday, November 19, the CORE Group, Save the Children and MCHIP are organizing a Technical Symposium in Washington, DC.The symposium is geared toward engaging the maternal, newborn and child health community to discuss strategies for strengthening country programs for the prevention of preterm birth and the care of babies born too soon. The event will focus on identifying what the international community can do to improve the effective delivery of technical interventions.
- The World Prematurity Day Facebook pageis collecting and publishing personal stories of preterm birth from around the world.
For more:
- Check out the Healthy Newborn Network’s collection of resources on preterm birth and events from last year;
- Read the latest blog post from Mariam Claeson, Gary Darmstadt, Cyril Engmann, Steve Wall of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on efforts to scale up Kangaroo Mother Care, a practice that holds immense promise for saving the lives of premature babies around the world;
- Visit the MHTF’s Perinatal Health topics page, and stay tuned to the MHTF blog for more, including a guest post from the INTERGROWTH-21st project.