Mission:
To improve the health of babies by preventing birth defects and infant mortality. The foundation carries out this mission through research and medical support, community services, education, and advocacy.

Purpose of Site:
The March of Dimes Web site provides information about the organization and its activities, including research on birth defects and genetics, advocacy, and volunteer efforts. The site also functions as a comprehensive health education resource and covers topics such as healthy pregnancies.

Background:
In 1938, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt established the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis to help conquer polio. That year the foundation's first grassroots fundraising campaign called for citizens all over the nation to send dimes to the White House. The organization changed its name in 1979 to the March of Dimes to honor that effort. Over the years, the March of Dimes' accomplishments have included helping with the development of the polio vaccine, funding the first successful bone marrow transplant to correct a birth defect, and supporting research related to alcohol consumption during pregnancy.

The March of Dimes' current programs include campaigns to improve the health of pregnant women, mothers, and women of childbearing age; provide education about birth defects, genetics, and nutrition to health professionals; and fund research that will help save babies' lives. In 2000, the organization provided $36.1 million for research.

Home Page:
At the top of the home page, users can access tools to search for local chapters by zip code or find content on the site by keyword. A toolbar is featured below the search boxes and includes links to the About Us, Health Library, Research, Show Your Support, Programs, and Public Affairs areas of the sites. The rest of the page provides sundry links, including pages devoted to specific fundraising activities such as WalkAmerica and Mothers March, news articles, information about healthy babies, and the organization's Spanish language site, Nacersano.org.

Outstanding Feature:
The Health Library's Resource Center helps the March of Dimes reach a large audience and provide education about the prevention of birth defects. Parents, healthcare providers, students, librarians, government agencies, health departments, social workers — people from all walks of life and from around the world — use the Resource Center to reach trained professionals who help people, one on one, to address personal and complex problems relating to pregnancy and birth defects. On the Web, users can send e-mail correspondence to resourcecenter@modimes.org or log on to the Resource Center's interactive dialogue site to communicate with a Health Information Specialist. The site also provides a toll-free telephone number.

Other resources in the Health Library include Medical News; Fact Sheets; Infant Health Statistics; Peristats (interactive perinatal data resource); Birth Defects Information; and a product catalog for March of Dimes reading materials, posters, and videos.

Honorable Mention:
The mama site is a comprehensive online guide to a healthy pregnancy. The are you ready? part of the site provides a pregnancy quiz, tips for talking to partners, and risks for women over the age of 35. The you're pregnant! pages offer a weight gain chart and pictures and descriptive information about how babies develop through pregnancy, and the offerings at the new arrival section include e-birth announcements, breastfeeding strategies, and information on the baby's first year and postpartum depression. The toolbox on the site also includes an ovulation calculator, due date calculator, and a list of pre-term labor signs.