NORWAY – Laura Burnham was 16 weeks pregnant when she learned her child would be born with a birth defect that, as the doctors told her, “was not compatible with life.”
Weeks later, on Jan. 5, Jacob Phillip Burnham was stillborn.
Suffering from a rare defect known as acrania, his spinal cord and skull were not forming properly. He weighed 60 ounces at birth, measured 7.5 inches in length and was only 19 weeks old.
Sitting in the kitchen of her Harrison Road home Monday, Laura Burnham quietly told the story of Jacob’s brief life in hopes of raising awareness of acrania and other birth defects. For that same reason, Burnham, her husband, Jeff, and their children, Jordan, 5, and Joshua, 2, all will be leading a team of walkers in the March of Dimes WalkAmerica 2005 event May 1.
One in every 10,000 women gives birth to a child with acrania, Burnham said. She hopes those numbers may change in the future.
The March of Dimes, according to its Web site, supports research and programs to help prevent or treat premature births, birth defects and complications that may threaten a baby’s life. According to the nonprofit organization, every day one in eight babies in the United States is born prematurely. That’s a total of more than 470,000 premature births each year.
Burnham said she learned about the WalkAmerica event in March, and since then 27 friends, family members and supporters have signed onto her team named Walking with Jacob. Some walkers already have turned in their sponsorship envelopes, she said, and the group has raised $2,000 to date.
Jeff Burnham said he, at first, expected only close friends and family members to support the team. Instead, people including Laura Burnham’s hairdresser, their childrens’ pediatrician and even Jordan’s dance instructor have signed on, he said.
The experience has been surprising, Laura Burnham said. A few months ago, she added, she never would have imagined telling her story to the public.
Burnham wears a small angel pin a friend has given her in honor of Jacob. “It’s like I get to have a part of him that everyone can see with me,” she said.
She will be wearing the pin during the May 1 walk.
“This is my way of remembering Jacob, and we can all get behind it and walk so hopefully no other family has to go through the same thing we did,” Burnham said.
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