On Wednesday evening, Gamecocks for Babies invited the presidents of all student organizations to a dinner to raise awareness and spread information about premature births.
Gamecocks for Babies is a nonprofit organization on campus that works with March of Dimes, which operates nationally and internationally to fund research into the causes of premature birth and to help the parents of premature children.
Stephanie Faucher, second-year broadcast journalism student and representative for Gamecocks for Babies, feels the dinner was helpful in educating students on the harsh realities of prematurity and how to prevent it.
“When a baby is born premature ... there are a lot of complications that come with it. There can be negative health defects and sometimes babies do die,” Faucher said. “For a healthy baby compared to a premature baby ... the babies have to stay in the hospital longer until they are well enough to be taken home depending on the length and depending on how early they were born.”
According to Faucher, South Carolina has a “D” grade, meaning that one in seven babies is born prematurely. This falls above the average premature babies born per year in the nation. The organization informed attendees that a premature baby costs 12 times as much in healthcare as a healthy baby.
“Because we are on a college campus, our hope is to educate the future generation,” Faucher said. “So much of preventing premature birth is steps that could be taken beforehand by the parents, but a lot of parents don’t know. So as the next generation of parents, this is really a time for us to help reduce this and to help prevent this from being an issue in our generation as well as the one coming after us.”
At the dinner, Gamecocks for Babies said that their goal for this year is to beat Clemson’s March of Dimes affiliate, Tigers for Babies, and to raise $20,000. The organization also introduced a March of Dimes mission family, the Carters, that has a daughter who was born prematurely. She is now eight years old and healthy.
Jamie Burger, second-year exercise science student and vice-chair of the organization, hopes that the dinner will encourage students to get more involved.
“[This is only] the third year that Gamecocks for Babies has been an organization, so we’re really trying to get events ... out to everyone,” Burger said. “We actually sent out a mass listserv email to all student organizations and kind of ones that were more targeted like pre-health, pre-med ... a couple sororities are here, too.”
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