Celebrating Newborn Cries and Healthy Kids
Those newborn cries when the first vaccines are administered in the early hours and days of life always make me smile. Your infant has no fear or learned reaction. It’s a quick prick, a quick cry and it’s done! Antibodies from you, and from the medicine work together, and a healthy journey is begun. It continues through the early growing years. Incentives are required now, to get your little one to sit still, beautiful snuggles take place afterwards to soothe and nurture them and their t-shirt is covered in stickers from the nurses! But it’s so worth it.
A child shouldn’t have to die every 20 seconds from a vaccine preventable disease like diarrhea, or pneumonia, or measles in the 21st century.
In 2011, we are close to the complete eradication of polio. It is 99% gone! Only 1,500 cases of polio were reported in the last year world-wide. I have loved ones affected by this disease. I am old enough to remember what it looks like and witness its life long aftermath. I want polio done! And on its heels many other easily preventable diseases like measles, which still kills children in vast numbers.
I want you to join me! A few weeks ago, at the UN Foundation/ Mashable/ 9nd St Y Social Good Summit, I was privileged to have a conversation with journalist David Muir of ABC News and dedicated global health champion, Dr Geeta Rao Gupta, Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF. We brought together Muir’s world of front line reporting, just back from the Horn of Africa; Dr Rao Gupta’s world of policy implementation and advocacy; and my world of online story telling and social media sharing; to spread awareness and invite action on vaccinations for children throughout the world.
You are part of that same world of online story telling and social sharing! Please post on Facebook and Twitter , on your blogs and by email what the Million Moms Challenge is trying to do! We must raise even greater awareness for healthy mothers and healthy babies.
I remember seeing this tweet and wanting to cry and shout all at the same time. There are solutions. They are working. And you are part of it.
Vaccines are the best health choice I’ve made for my children. What’s your favorite tip for raising a healthy baby? By replying, you will be entered to win an exclusive Million Moms Challenge Gift Pack, which includes an iPad2, a custom-made Million Moms Challenge pendant and a $50 donation in your name to Global Giving.
Please show your support for the Million Moms Challenging by liking MMC on Facebook. If you’re already a supporter, please share this initiative with your friends and families! We are getting closer to our 100,000 goal and we need your help.
This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Million Moms Challenge. The opinions and text are all mine. Contest runs November 14 to December 18, 2011. A random winner will be announced by December 20, 2011.