March of Dimes history

The first president of the March of Dimes, Basil O'Connor, directed the foundation's early activities, including providing the first iron lung to assist polio victims in 1941.

In 1943 President Roosevelt appointed Whitelaw to head the national women’s committee of the March of Dimes.

One innovation was the poster child campaign, which began in 1946.

March of Dimes-funded medical research accelerated as the patient aid program was taxed to its limits, particularly in the huge polio epidemic of 1949.

By 1951, the March of Dimes had spent $1 million to support a number of scientists who finally identified all three types of polio virus.

In 1953, Salk confirmed that a killed-virus vaccine for polio could stop the epidemic.

1954: March of Dimes mobilizes huge field trial for polio vaccine.

But in 1955, the Salk vaccine was declared effective.

1958: Organization changes focus to prevention of birth defects.

The foundation established the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California in 1960.

In 1961, research the March of Dimes had funded led to the development of the PKU test, which can identify and prevent some forms of mental retardation.

In 1962, the government licensed an oral polio vaccine developed by Doctor Albert Sabin with March of Dimes funding.

In 1964, the March of Dimes held its first Volunteer Leadership Conference in La Jolla to inaugurate the Salk Institute and to celebrate the gains of the first years of birth defects prevention.

In 1968, the organization funded the first successful bone marrow transplant used to correct a birth defect.

The promise of reinvention was evident no less in the fund-raising arena as March of Dimes chapters began to hold local “walk-a-thons” as community fund-raisers in 1970.

Researchers it funded found in 1973 that alcohol consumption can affect fetal development.

The first Gourmet Gala was held in 1976.

So in 1982 the foundation launched a public awareness campaign called 'Babies & You,' which brought prenatal education into the workplace.

In 1990, Doctor Jennifer L. Howse began her tenure as president and launched the Campaign for Healthier Babies as a platform to promote cost effective prenatal care programs focusing on reducing low birthweight and infant mortality.

In 1994, the organization began a program to educate women of childbearing age on the value of taking folic acid supplements, since this can prevent some particular birth defects.

The March of Dimes also launched a new, massive public health campaign beginning in 1998 and expected to last three years.

In 2003, the March of Dimes launched its Prematurity Campaign to confront this alarming trend, the nation’s most serious perinatal health problem.

OTIS: Organization of Teratology Information Specialists. "Fact Sheets." 〈http://otispregnancy.org/otis_fact_sheets.asp〉 (accessed January 18, 2006).

Initial Prematurity Campaign goals were to increase public awareness of the problem and to decrease the preterm birth rate by at least 15 percent by 2010.

In that year, the Foundation formally added prematurity to its mission statement and three years later extended the Prematurity Campaign to the year 2020 in an effort to apply additional scientific, clinical and public policy advances to solve this problem.