The mission of the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation is to improve the health of babies by preventing birth defects and infant mortality.
March of Dimes Global Programs builds on the Foundation's strengths through development and implementation of innovative programs to promote perinatal health worldwide.
This electronic newsletter provides you with announcements about March of Dimes resources and activities, promising new research results, upcoming conferences and other useful topics. Earlier issues of the newsletter, as well as additional information about the March of Dimes and its Global Programs, may be found on our Web site.
Support for Eradication of Congenital Rubella Syndrome (CRS) CRS is a major cause of acquired birth defects. About 25 percent of babies whose mothers contract rubella during the first trimester of pregnancy are born with one or more birth defects which, together, are referred to as CRS. The combination of birth defects that characterize CRS include eye defects that can lead to blindness, hearing loss, heart defects, mental retardation and cerebral palsy. There is no specific treatment for CRS, but rubella vaccination before pregnancy prevents it.
In 1998, the March of Dimes provided support to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) to help implement rubella/CRS surveillance strategies across the region of the Americas. The grant accelerated CRS eradication efforts to the degree that CRS has now disappeared in the English-speaking Caribbean and Uruguay. CRS is expected to be eliminated in all countries of the Americas by the year 2010. In addition, through a contribution of the rubella vaccine made in 2001, the March of Dimes, jointly with UNICEF and the European Regional Office of the World Health Organization (WHO), helped initiate eradication of CRS in Kyrgyzstan. The next countries slated for eradication of CRS in the region are Moldova, Estonia, Latvia and Ukraine.
New Center Will Focus on Birth Defects The new National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities (NCBDDD) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) works to: promote optimal fetal, infant and child development; prevent birth defects and childhood developmental disabilities; and enhance the quality of life among children, adolescents and adults who are living with disabilities. The March of Dimes actively supported the establishment of the Center.
In operation since April, 2001, the NCBDDD has established the National Birth Defects Prevention Network to influence both the quality and quantity of birth defects monitoring data. The Center provides financial support for state-based birth defects surveillance systems, and has initiated activities in the areas of fetal alcohol syndrome, autism and monitoring developmental disabilities. Please visit the Center Web site for more information.
Charting the Course - NCBDDD Inaugural Conference - September 17-19, 2002 The conference, to be held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Atlanta, Ga., will address a broad range of topics related to the newest CDC Center's mission. The conference theme, Honoring the Past and Framing the Future, will provide an opportunity to reflect on the significant advances that have been made toward the prevention of birth defects and developmental disabilities, and in the area of disability and health, as well as to enable attendees to participate in charting the course for future directions.
The conference will promote knowledge and awareness of successful approaches to the prevention of birth defects and developmental disabilities, and to the health and wellness of people of all ages who live with disabilities. It also will provide an opportunity to: share leading research; promote the development of new skills; encourage application of proven prevention strategies from research and identified best practices; develop new working relationships among organizations; and build and strengthen coalitions and partnerships.
The conference objectives are: to strengthen the established comprehensive birth defects and developmental disabilities research and prevention strategies; to identify future opportunities; to promote collaboration with partners working toward common goals; and to introduce the Center, its mission, goals, and services.
American International Health Alliance and March of Dimes Pair Up to Improve Maternal and Child Health in Central and Eastern Europe The March of Dimes is pleased to announce a new project aimed at decreasing the rate of birth defects and improving infant, child and maternal health in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the Newly Independent States (NIS) of the former Soviet Union. This activity will be conducted in partnership with the American International Health Alliance (AIHA). The project — called the Mission Alliance to Improve Perinatal Health Education in Eastern Europe — seeks to improve health through an education and training program targeted to health care practitioners, as well as to men and women of reproductive age throughout these regions.
"Estimates of the infant mortality rate in the nations of the NIS/CEE average three times higher than those in the U.S.," said Dr. Christopher Howson, Director, Global Programs, March of Dimes. "Likewise, serious birth defects such as spina bifida, exact a very high toll. The good news, however, is that these countries also have strong professional capacity to markedly reduce these rates. What is needed is effective training of health care professionals in best practices in preconceptional and perinatal health and the dissemination of this training through the networks of organizations like AIHA to promote the birth of healthy babies."
Building on the unique strengths of each organization, this three-year project is to be implemented in two phases. Pilot sites will be selected from AIHA's extensive network of partnership institutions in the NIS/CEE, with a long-term goal of replicating the program at other facilities throughout the region. Teaching resources will be drawn from March of Dimes wealth of educational materials geared toward audiences ranging from physicians and other health care providers to community leaders and the general public.
AIHA is a nonprofit organization based in Washington, DC, working under cooperative agreements with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the United States Department of Energy, which establishes and manages partnerships between health care institutions in the United States and their counterparts throughout the NIS and Central and Eastern Europe. With financing provided by the United States government, these partnerships strive to develop long-term, sustainable health care solutions tailored to the needs of individual communities. Areas of focus for AIHA partnerships include community-based primary health care, women's health, emergency medicine, infection control, neonatal resuscitation, and health management education, among other things. For more information on AIHA, visit their Web site.
Maternal and Child Health Genetics in China in the 21st Century - Beijing Planning Conference The March of Dimes, along with the China Preventive Medicine Association, will co-host a three-day conference and workshop in Beijing at the end of October, 2002. The meeting will convene health officials and experts in genetics from three provinces and three major metropolitan areas in China, and the national government, to develop a framework and associated action steps for implementing services such as birth defects surveillance and newborn screening, and education programs to prevent and treat genetic diseases in their population.
The meeting, which builds on the studies and policy recommendations summarized in the 2000 WHO report Screening for the Prevention and Management of Genetic Disorders and Birth Defects in Developing Countries, will help policy makers and health care providers in China to realize the promise of genetics in perinatal health. The action plans developed as a result of the conference will provide a key basis for discussion at the 2nd International Conference on the Prevention and Care of Birth Defects in Developing Countries to be held in Beijing in 2004.
Promising New Treatment for PPHN Promising New Treatment for Persistent Pulmonary Hypertension of the Newborn (PPHN) to Undergo Clinical Trials A medication widely used to treat an adult problem shows early promise for treating a very different, life-threatening problem in newborn babies - pulmonary hypertension, a form of persistent fetal circulation. PPHN can quickly lead to hypoxia — a "blue baby" — and heart failure.
Preliminary reports suggest that sildenafil (Viagra®) may reduce need for treatment of PPHN by inhalation of nitric oxide (NO), a gas, mixed in extremely small, precisely controlled amounts with pure oxygen or oxygen-enriched air. NO works very well against PPHN by expanding arteries in the lungs, and thereby increasing blood flow through them, but is expensive to provide. It requires complex equipment and continuous intensive care during treatment, which must be uninterrupted because NO is almost immediately inactivated in the body. Viagra delays the body's inactivation of NO for hours, and so keeps lung arteries wide open.
Preliminary assessments of Viagra's ability to relieve PPHN in adults have been done in Germany, Scotland, Canada and the United States, and cooperatively between England and Kyrgyzstan. Anecdotal reports of successes for "blue babies" treated orally have recently come from the United States, England and India. According to a recent report the drug's manufacturer, Pfizer, Inc., is said to be considering clinical trial of an injectable form of the drug for treating infants.
Until next time, The March of Dimes
This online newsletter is sponsored by the March of Dimes, a nonprofit organization. The mission of the March of Dimes is to improve the health of babies by preventing birth defects and infant mortality. For more information about the March of Dimes, visit our Web site at http://www.marchofdimes.com/.
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