In the coming year, Alexa and her parents, Jessica and Josue, will travel the country to help raise awareness of the growing crisis of premature birth, with a special emphasis on premature birth in the Hispanic community.  The Ostolaza's represent one out of half a million babies born prematurely in the U.S. each year.  Five years later they are still reminded of Alexa's premature birth by her weekly therapies and living with mild cerebral palsy and a permanent shunt in her brain.  Jessica and Josue are grateful for their daughter's remarkable outcome due to research and treatments funded by the March of Dimes and recognize how important it is to help in the fight to defeat premature birth. 

Alexa's story begins far before she was ready to come into the world.  At just 24 weeks gestation, Jessica went for a routine physical and was found to have developed life-threatening high blood pressure.  She was immediately admitted to the hospital, put on complete bed rest, and given steroid injections to help speed the development of Alexa's lungs.  After only five days into her hospital stay, Jessica was too sick to continue with the pregnancy.  With the fear of losing Jessica and her baby, doctors performed and emergency c-section.

Alexa was immediately rushed to the NICU, where she would ultimately spend 108 days, before being released.  She was diagnosed with respiratory distress syndrome, and received surfactant therapy to allow her lungs to breath, suffered from brain bleeds resulting in a permanent shunt in her brain, and went through rounds of  medications to control seizures.  Still today, Jessica and Josue are living with the consequences of their daughter's premature birth.  While Alexa is a healthy little girl, her parents are still concerned about her long-term health, hoping and praying nothing will go wrong.

 “We want everyone to understand that the effects from prematurity stretch well beyond a baby's stay in the NICU,”  said Josue.  “Alexa has come a long way and continues to progress daily, but she still has years of work ahead of her.   A small price to pay, to have such a beautiful healthy child.”

The March of Dimes began its multi-year campaign to address the growing rate of premature birth in 2003.  The campaign educates women on the signs and symptoms of premature birth, and supports more research into the causes of premature labor.  One of the goals of the campaign is to help the nation reach the goal set by the U.S. Public Health Service of reducing the rate of premature birth to 7.6 percent by 2010.

The March of Dimes National Ambassador Program is an annual campaign, started in 1946, that puts a face on the March of Dimes mission.  Throughout the year, the National Ambassador attends events and conferences, speaks with volunteers, does media interviews and appears with corporate leaders, celebrities and the President of the United States to raise awareness of the March of Dimes.

Continental Airlines, the world's sixth-largest airline, is proud to be the official airline of the March of Dimes 2006 National Ambassador Program. Continental, together with Continental Express and Continental Connection, has more than 3,000 daily departures throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia, serving 151 domestic and 133 international destinations, more than any other carrier in the world. More than 400 additional points are served via SkyTeam alliance airlines. With over 42,000 employees, Continental has hubs serving New York, Houston, Cleveland and Guam, and together with Continental Express, carries approximately 60 million passengers per year. Continental consistently earns awards and critical acclaim for both its operation and its corporate culture.

OFFICIAL AIRLINE OF THE 2007 NATIONAL AMBASSADOR PROGRAM