A nonprofit says preterm births are up in the U.S. — and it's not a partisan issue
Katie Cato and her husband Neil were delighted when she became pregnant in late 2019 after a difficult journey with IVF — so much so that they kept putting off the announcement, always waiting to have one more ultrasound or hit one more benchmark before sharing the good news.
Things got complicated around week 23 of the pregnancy when she noticed a lack of movement. By week 24, a previously scheduled ultrasound revealed issues with the umbilical cord blood flow, and Cato's doctor told them to get to the hospital that night.
They drove an hour from their home in rural Lavonia, Ga., to the nearest advanced hospital, in Greenville, S.C. The baby's condition worsened over several frantic days, and he was born via emergency C-section at just 25 weeks. (For context: Pregnancy typically lasts around 40 weeks, with any births sooner than 37 weeks considered "preterm.")
The boy, named Brooks, needed to be resuscitated immediately. Cato remembers that when a nurse passed by with the 24-ounce baby in her arms, he was so small that she couldn't even see him. And she recalls the warning that she and her husband got, as she was still recovering from her own procedure.
