Let's get Dr Oz to do a CDH show
Ok CDH families, let's get Dr Oz to do a CDH show!
Share your story or copy and paste CDH info (you can use any of ours posted here or on our blog, site, etc)
http://www.doctoroz.com/plugger?tid=21
Below is Dawn's letter - feel free to grab any statistics!
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Dear Doctor Oz,
Please consider doing a show on Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia.
CDH is a devastating birth defect that affects 1 in every 2500 babies. A baby is born with CDH every 10 minutes - this adds up to half a million babies since 2000. This is as common as Cystic Fibrosis and Spina Bifida but yet most of the public has never heard of it. CDH occurs when the diaphragm fails to fully form, allowing abdominal organs to move into the chest cavity and preventing lung growth. 50% of babies born with CDH do not survive. The cause is not known.
I run an international grassroots charity here in the NC called CHERUBS. We help families of babies born with Congenital Diaphragmatic (CDH). CHERUBS was founded in 1995 after my son was born with CDH and transferred to Duke. I was 19 years old, there was no internet, no support group and no information. Thus, CHERUBS was started and now we help 1000's of families, on a shoe-strung budget with no paid employees, and we run the largest long-term CDH research database in history. We are the world's oldest and largest CDH organization and work with families and doctors in 38 countries. Yet, we are struggling to raise CDH Awareness.
We have dozens of members who would love to be on your show and talk about their children. You could talk about CDH repair, in utero procedures such as fetal tracheal occlusion, ECMO, long-term issues, etc.
CDH is as common as Spina Bifida and Cystic Fibrosis, yet we have so little awareness and virtually no research. Your show could do so much for our cause by bringing CDH Awareness to millions. And I know it can help so many CDH families to less alone.
We would be so appreciative if you would consider doing a story on CDH.
Thank you so much.
Dawn Williamson
CHERUBS President & Founder
919-610-0129
http://www.cdhsupport.org
http://www.cdhresearch.org
http://cdhsupport.blogspot.org
http://www.shane-torrence.org (my son's story)
