By: Alana Pappas ‘15
Staff Writer

The March of Dimes Organization is a very large fundraising group to help premature babies. The March of Dimes’ overall mission is to help moms have full-term pregnancies and research the problems that threaten the health of babies. The March of Dimes organization hosts numerous amounts of walks. These walks bring everyone together and help them forget about the stress they endure from their busy lives and raise money as well as awareness of such tragic stories.
Cherry Hill High School West has been involved with the March of Dimes for the past nine years. Every year some of the sports teams and anyone else who wants to get involved, work together to raise money and sell t-shirts for Mrs. Brunswick’s daughter Samantha. Mrs. Brunswick works hard to get the word out and raise as much money as she can each year for the organization. This year we raised over $1,300, which is the most ever. Mrs. Heidi Brunswick had a personal experience with premature birth in 2004. She gave birth to twins on April 15th, Samantha Renee and Ryan Michael. Babies born under 34 weeks have a very high chance of bleeding in the brain because the blood vessels have a high risk of not being able to take the drastic change in circulation. Ryan and Sammi were only 25 weeks along, which didn’t allow their blood vessels to fully develop. Samantha had a grade 1 brain bleed which resolved with no brain damage. On the other hand, Ryan had a grade 4 brain bleed (the worst) which doesn’t allow the brain to develop correctly. This is the cause of all of his problems today, cerebral palsy, seizures, legally blind, hearing impaired, severe neurological development, feeding issues, and severe scoliosis. Ryan went through 9 brain surgeries before he was 6 years old. Fortunately for Ryan, despite his many disabilities, he still has a love for life, and is always laughing and enjoying himself.
Unfortunately for Sammi things were different. Sammi was doing well, although losing weight, so she began eating more. Sammi was then diagnosed with NEC, (Necrotizing Enterocolitis). This condition is when a portion of the newborns intestine develops poor blood flow that can lead to infection in the bowel wall. Only in very severe cases surgery was needed, which was true in Samantha’s. Samantha’s intestine was too immature for the amount of food her body was trying to digest so her small intestine popped and began deteriorating. She went into emergency surgery and came out with only 24cm of her small intestine. A normal size of a small intestine for a baby is 60cm. When she came out of surgery she needed a central line for nutrition because her intestine was no longer stable enough to allow her to eat on her own. This caused infections and liver complications up until Samantha’s body could no longer fight it. On June 27, 2005, Samantha lost her battle.
15 million babies suffer  from premature birth every year. Together… we fight premature birth.