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Click here to register for this event What Mark your calendars for Friday, November 18 and plan to attend the 2011 Prematurity Summit! This educational conference will feature sessions on Post Partum Depression and PTSD relating to premature birth, a parent panel on the effects of prematurity, and the importance of waiting until 39 weeks completed gestation for delivery. This conference will provide a luncheon, light snack and materials, and CEU’s will be available! Seating is limited, so make sure to reserve your spot early! When: Friday, November 18, 2011 11:00am - 5:00pm Where: Crowne Plaza Hotel 3rd Floor, Ballroom C 27 North 27th Street Billings, Montana

Families of children born premature fare well long-term, even when those children experience developmental disabilities, new research indicates. In the first study to look at the impact of prematurity on families into young adulthood, researchers followed about 250 families, half of whom had a child with extremely low birth weight and half of whom had a child born with normal weight.

For the first time in three decades, the rate of premature births in the United States has declined for two years in a row, a finding that suggests the country is finally beginning to make some progress in the battle against prematurity.

High rates of premature birth are the main reason the United States has higher infant mortality than do many other rich countries, government researchers reported Tuesday in their first detailed analysis of a longstanding problem.

Premature babies who receive an interventional therapy combining their mother’s voice and a pacifier-activated music player learn to eat more efficiently and have their feeding tubes removed sooner than other preemies, according to a Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt study published today in Pediatrics.

In between those scenarios is a zone between life and death, between viability and futility. If a baby is born after the 22nd week of pregnancy but before the 25th, not even the smartest doctors in the world can say what will happen to it. New technologies can sometimes keep these micropreemies alive, but many end up disabled, some catastrophically so. Whether to provide care to these infants is one of the fundamental controversies in neonatology.

Giving parents of newborn preemies some help right from the start may make a difference in their children's behavior by school age, a new study suggests.

Parents are bombarded with stories about autism research. Headlines and somber-voiced announcers declare that new research has found that autism is linked to a smorgasbord of things: mom's age, dad's age, grandfather's age, living near freeways, living near farms, prenatal stress, premature birth, fertility treatments, obese mothers, flu during pregnancy, having babies too closely together, and so on. How do we make sense of this?

Kelly Camel comes to a halt, and the halls of the Adams Center fall silent. Stretching his arm toward a poster on the wall, he points at a member of the 1996 men's basketball team. "J.R.," he says, in his rudimentary speech.  It's the legendary J.R. Camel, whose athleticism and leaping abilities as a Grizzly were without parallel. His uncle. Kelly can't be like J.R.  He can't run.  He can't jump.  He can't make a shot or pass to a teammate.   But he spends every men's basketball game tucked at the end of the bench. He cheers for the team. He yells at referees. He mimics the gestures of head coach Wayne Tinkle. "He is like a little Energizer Bunny for us," junior forward Derek Selvig said. And although the basketball season is finished, the team's proudest fan is just getting started. Soon, Montana's biggest and most beloved supporter, known to all by his first name, will make fandom his business, opening his own company called Kelly Gear. Kelly was born on Jan. 3, 1978, 3 1/2 months early. He weighed 1 pound, 6 ounces. His chances of survival were one in 100.