Join me in the movement to empower and educate parents about the importance (and ease!) of fetal movement monitoring in the third trimester. I became an Ambassador for Count the Kicks three years after my daughter, Marie Evangeline Pike, was stillborn at the end of a healthy, full-term, low-risk pregnancy. Words can’t begin to fully describe the earth shattering experience of losing Marie to stillbirth. Over the last four years, sharing my experience has been many things - painful, therapeutic, uncomfortable, and life-saving. As I slowly then steadily wrote about my daughter on Instagram, I found myself surrounded by an online community of parents that had been blindsided by the same devastating end to a pregnancy. As the fog began to lift and the reality of what we’d been through fully set in, many of us realized: we are not statistics. We are human beings, suffering what many see as an unimaginable and rare type of loss. Stigma, silence, and a lack of awareness have led to little progress in reducing preventable stillbirths, often written off as something we have no power to influence. I have met far too many mothers who either raised their concerns about a change in their baby’s movement and were ignored, or were not educated by their healthcare provider about the importance of fetal movement monitoring in the first place. Through Count the Kicks, I’ve also cried tears of joy and relief reading “Baby Save” stories about kick counting changing the trajectory of a pregnancy for the better. One baby lost to preventable stillbirth is too many. And one baby saved is worth every ounce of effort this organization puts forth. Count the Kicks is helping to reduce preventable stillbirths with access to free, easy tools and education about kick counting during pregnancy. In the first 10 years after the organization was founded in Iowa, the state experienced a 32% reduction in stillbirth - while the nationwide stillbirth rate has remained relatively stagnant. For so many parents, the fallout of stillbirth is emotionally, physically, socially, and financially devastating. Positive birth outcomes are good for our families, our communities, and our world. Help us reach more parents with education about the free, easy, empowering, life-saving impact of kick counting. It costs just 14 cents to educate and empower an expectant parent to track their baby's movements in the third trimester. By donating to Every Woman Counts, your gift goes a long way and has the power to save a life. Every gift will go directly toward sending Count the Kicks educational materials to more expectant parents, provider offices, clinics, nurses, midwives and birthing hospitals. Thank you for helping us save more babies! With endless, boundless love and longing for my Marie and every baby gone too soon, Shannon

Text the keyword COURAGEOUS to 50155 to donate right from your phone. Message rates may apply.