The March of Dimes imbornto campaign is intended to engage with parents
around Mother’s Day and Father’s Day since our quest for “stronger, healthier
babies” truly begins with the most important people in babies’ lives – parents!
Through our history, our support of parents has been an understated but crucial
aspect of addressing the medical and public health problems that have been the
focus of our mission. Only a parent can measure most profoundly the personal effects
of illness and disability on a child. Our emphasis today on healthy pregnancy
and healthy babies implicitly involves parents in our most important
objectives. After all, this concern is at the basis of providing “News Moms
Need.”
Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are
special occasions to honor one’s parents. In the 1950s the March of Dimes
recognized Mother’s Day by selecting an annual “Polio Mother of the Year.” But
the hoopla surrounding such publicity skirts the momentous fact that the
conquest of polio was achieved by millions of women (and men) who joined
“Mothers March,” the most successful fund-raiser of those years. “Mothers March
on Polio” soon became “Mothers March on Birth Defects,” and the volunteer moms
and dads behind these efforts were as much responsible for improving children’s
health as the creators of vaccines and the leaders in perinatal breakthroughs.
This is but one reason why we laud the contributions of mothers and fathers
today.
From Virginia Apgar’s 1972 book of
advice to new parents, Is My Baby All Right?, to our decades-long
involvement in supporting families undergoing the traumatic experience of a
NICU hospitalization, the March of Dimes has appreciated the role of parents in
children’s health. Our current push for creating transdisciplinary centers for research on premature birth
runs parallel to our propensity for collaboration and team-building, and the
role of parents in these endeavors is just as fundamental to the overarching
social goals of improving children’s health.
In 1955, the National Father’s Day
Committee selected March of Dimes President Basil O’Connor as “Father of the
Year.” In the wake of the success of the polio vaccine created with March of
Dimes funds by Dr. Jonas Salk, his selection may seem to us all-too-obvious in
retrospect. His daughters, Sheelagh O’Connor and Bettyann Culver, attended a
recognition luncheon, and the requisite photographs were taken. Among the many
letters of congratulations that O’Connor received, one close business contact
wrote, “You are a good father, and you are an exceptionally good citizen and
good friend.” It is in this spirit of warm appreciation that the March of Dimes
pays tribute to mothers and fathers. Hats off to all moms and dads!
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