The rate of premature birth in the United States has reached an alarming 12,7 percent, although the Food and Drug Administration said it shouldn’t have jumped more than 7,6 percent. The statistic is shocking especially because, nowadays, sophisticated healthcare technology is at our disposal.

An estimated 530,000 babies are delivered before term in the United States each year. Being born earlier than 37 weeks of gestation has multiple negative effects on one’s health and personality. This is the main cause of death in the first month of a baby’s life.

The March of Dimes released its first Premature Birth Report Card, based on data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2005, the most recent year for which final birth trends data is available. The national situation is not at all gladdening: No American state received an A, and only Vermont received a B (with a 9 percent rate). At the opposite pole, states along with the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico earned an F. Also in terms of premature birth, there were 8 states that got a C (California, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Oregon counting among them) and 23 states got a D (for instance Michigan, New Jersey and Massachusetts).

Starting 1990, the incidence of premature birth has increased considerably, said the March of Dimes, a charitable organization created to improve babies’ health. Since 1970, the group has hosted each year the event “March for Babies,” formerly known as WalkAmerica, this way helping to raise over $1.7 billion to fund research and programs to prevent preterm birth.

The rate of preterm births in the United States, which costs the nation an estimated $26 billion a year, is "more than 60% higher" than the federal government's goal for 2010, having risen "by more than 15% between 1995 and 2005," the group said in the report.

In addition, the report also disclosed that many women of childbearing age (15 – 44 according to experts) have no health insurance coverage, so they miss their chance to know whether their medical conditions may lead to giving birth earlier than 37 weeks. In the State of California, a quarter of women of childbearing age aren’t covered by health insurance. Premature birth rate in the U.S. state is 10.7 percent, which means 40 percent above the national goal. Moreover, one in nine Californian women in this age group smokes, and it is unanimously known that smoking increases the risk of delivering preemies, the findings showed.

A March of Dimes’s petition for preemies written earlier this year asked for extra federal attention to this major problem and more funds for research on prevention. The group urged businesses to create workplaces to support maternal and infant care, and asked medical facilities and health care professionals to voluntarily assess C-sections and inductions that occur before 39 weeks gestation (deliveries should be scheduled after 39 weeks of pregnancy, according to the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology).

Regarding the numbers, Jacki Apel, Director of Communications March of Dimes, said that in half of all cases “we don't know why moms are having premature babies and we need to find out how to find more preventions and more causes. "