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Home News Hoops for Preemies to Raise Prematurity Awareness

Hoops for Preemies to Raise Prematurity Awareness

Published: Friday, October 31, 2008

Come to Karns High School on Saturday, Nov. 8 to watch some action packed high school basketball scrimmage games and help raise awareness of prematurity, a very important medical issue in our community.

The event, the second annual Shelby Zoe Smith Hoops for Preemies, will feature a different scrimmage game every hour from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and donations will benefit the private-room Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at UT Medical Center, the unit that cares for more than 800 premature and critically ill babies every year.

It’s the same unit that helped make Knoxville residents Seth and Millicent Smith more aware of the issue of prematurity and its staggering statistics such as the following. 

 

• One in eight babies nationally is born prematurely.
• In Tennessee, the prematurity rate is one in seven babies.
• Prematurity is the leading cause of infant death.

 

“We feel very thankful and privileged to be able to give back and help out by raising prematurity awareness,” said Seth Smith. “We had no idea about any of the warning signs that were occurring during Millicent’s pregnancy, so it’s very important that people are aware of the causes and have the opportunity to help out by donating to UT Medical Center’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit that works so hard to provide care for premature babies.”

The Smiths’ 2-year-old daughter, Shelby, was born nearly three months early in October 2006. Shelby spent three months in UT Medical Center’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit before becoming health enough to go home to her parents. Shelby is doing fine now and is happy and healthy. But nationally, prematurity and complications from prematurity account for 30-percent of newborn deaths. The earlier a baby is born during the pregnancy, the greater the risk of death.

While many premature births, like Shelby’s, may not be preventable, there are many causes of prematurity that are known, such as poor maternal health, lack of prenatal care and smoking and alcohol use during pregnancy. The Smith family wants every family to know all the information necessary to minimize their chances of having a premature baby and maximize their chances of having a full-term, healthy baby.

That’s why the Smith family created the event in 2007 with four local boy’s high school basketball teams participating. This year, the event has grown to eight teams and features four boy’s teams and four girl’s teams. The game schedule is as follows:

Boy’s Games

• 9 a.m. – Fulton vs. Karns
• 10 a.m. – Oak Ridge vs. Carter
• 11 a.m. – Fulton vs. Oak Ridge
• 12 Noon – Karns vs. Carter

Girl’s Games 

• 1 p.m. – Karns vs. Oliver Springs
• 2 p.m. – Webb vs. Fulton
• 3 p.m. – Oliver Springs vs. Webb
• 4 p.m. – Karns vs. Fulton

 

In addition to the action on the court, representatives from the Center for Women and Children’s Health and the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at UT Medical Center will offer information about prematurity and tips for staying healthy before and during pregnancy.

“Despite all the struggles while Shelby was in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, our experience was nothing but positive at UT Medical Center,” Seth Smith said. “That’s because of the way we were treated by the nurses, doctors and other folks at UT Medical Center. I want people to know how much they care about the babies they treat and their families.”