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Home News Family of Educators to Teach Community About Prematurity at Shelby Zoe Smith Hoops for Preemies Event

Family of Educators to Teach Community About Prematurity at Shelby Zoe Smith Hoops for Preemies Event

Published: Monday, October 22, 2007

Seth and Millicent Smith spent three full months learning about the strains premature birth can place on a family.
The Smith’s precious baby girl, Shelby Zoe Smith, was born Oct. 25, 2006. She wasn’t due until Jan. 18, 2007. The preterm birth resulted in an immediate trip to The University of Tennessee Medical Center’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), a special unit for critically ill and premature babies. Seth and Millicent, both educators with the Knox County School System, came to know the NICU quite well throughout the next 13 weeks. Shelby finally went home Jan. 22, 2007, and continues to develop well and be a happy, healthy girl who’s celebrating her first birthday this month.

“Prematurity hits you out of the blue, you’re just not expecting something like that so suddenly,” said Seth Smith, assistant principal at Carter High School. “We saw so many families and babies in great need in the NICU. There’s such a strong need for people to be aware of prematurity and to work toward finding a cure and helping to fight prematurity.”

The Smith family is doing just that with the Shelby Zoe Smith Hoops for Preemies event, a series of pre-season boy’s high school basketball scrimmage games with the goal of raising prematurity awareness, Saturday, Nov. 3 from 12 noon to 4 p.m. at Karns High School. Donations will be accepted at the event for the private-room Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at UT Medical Center.

The Smith family organized the event, which will include participation from Seth Smith’s Carter High School, Fulton High School, Oak Ridge High School and Karns High School. Millicent Smith is assistant principal at Karns. The schedule for the games is as follows.

 

• Noon – Fulton vs. Karns
• 1 p.m. – Oak Ridge vs. Carter
• 2 p.m. – Fulton vs. Oak Ridge
• 3 p.m. – Karns vs. Carter

 

“We’ve had so much love and support from our friends, family and the staff of the NICU at UT Medical Center, “ Seth Smith said. “We just wanted to find an opportunity to give back, and we really think this will be a fun way to raise awareness about a serious issue.”

In addition to the excitement of the games, UT Medical Center will offer an informational booth about prematurity. Tennessee ranks among the worst in the nation for preterm births and infant mortality. Prematurity is the leading cause of infant death.

The University of Tennessee Medical Center is a 581-bed, not-for-profit academic medical center, which serves as a referral center for Eastern Tennessee, Southeast Kentucky and Western North Carolina. The medical center, the region’s only Level I Trauma Center, is one of the largest employers in Knoxville. For more information about the University of Tennessee Medical Center, visit online at www.utmedicalcenter.org.