{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://mcgarvey.house.gov/media/press-releases/transcript-of-congressman-morgan-mcgarveys-remarks-on-premature-awareness-month", "Transcript of Congressman Morgan McGarvey\u2019s Remarks on Premature Awareness Month", "2023-11-29", "2023", "2023-11", "Democrat", "House", "KY", "Morgan McGarvey", "M001220", "mcgarvey.house.gov", "mcgarvey", "https://mcgarvey.house.gov/media/press-releases", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C. (November 29, 2023) \u2013 Today, Congressman Morgan McGarvey (KY-03) joined his colleagues, Congresswoman Jennifer McClellan (VA-04) and Congresswoman Robin Kelly (IL-02), and March of Dimes President and CEO Dr. Elizabeth Cherot, at a press conference marking November as Premature Awareness Month. A transcript of his remarks are below:\n\nThank you so much, Congresswoman McClellan. Thank you to Dr. Cherot for sharing those statistics. D plus is simply unacceptable \u2014 particularly when we are talking about women's health. We're talking about our most fragile human beings and premature babies. We're talking about the health disparities, particularly in black and brown women in this country. We've got to do better.\n\nThank you, Emma Lee, for your story. I know how difficult that is. And you were making me relive a lot of what we went through and thinking about this week. We can talk about the statistics, but the turmoil it takes on every family that goes through this as well is significant.\n\nI remember we went in for our 24 week scan; we had twins, it was our first pregnancy, it was fantastic. The doctor said everything looks so good, don't come back for another month. The next day, my wife called me laughing from work and she said, \u201cyou're not going to believe this \u2014 I just peed my pants\u201d. And the next call, she called crying from the emergency room and she said \u201cmy water broke\u201d.\n\nAnd we couldn't be cared for at the hospital where we were \u2014 they didn't have a level of NICU high enough for us and we were transported to a different hospital in an ambulance. We didn't leave for 109 days. And our babies were born fortunately at 26 weeks and had gotten some of the surfactant, some of the things we know help these premature babies, but they were a half and a pound and 15 ounces, respectively.\n\nWe went through the ventilator, we went through all the pumping stories, we had to use other people's freezers \u2014 it makes me think about all the things you have to go through. But even then with these such fragile, fragile human beings, they got one cc of breast milk over eight hours delivered through a hydraulic arm because they can't tolerate it and then they have to grow. And you can't change the caloric content of breast milk. And we know with premature babies that if you're using a cow supplement, a bovine supplement, to up the caloric count of that breast milk \u2014 it has terrible consequences for preemies. And we know the advantages of human fortified breast milk.\n\nSo we found out about that and in Kentucky, insurance wouldn't cover it. And so we fought and we fought and we fought to try and get our babies out of the hospital just as any parent would do. And it makes me realize the way policy interacts with this because when you're sleeping in a hospital chair, you say a lot of prayers and you make a lot of promises.\n\nAnd one of the promises I made, I said if we ever get out of here, we're going to do something about this. I didn't know what but we'll do something to help. And a year later I ran for the state senate and passed the first insurance mandate in Kentucky history where we mandated the coverage of human fortified breast milk for premature babies. So raising this awareness, getting people to understand what goes on, to know the humans behind these stories, the successful outcomes. And of course, the nearly million babies who die worldwide from prematurity \u2014 that we can help out is just going to be so beneficial for our families in this country, in this world. And so, Congresswoman McClellan, thank you so much for what you're doing, the March of Dimes team, thank you for what you're doing. And let's continue raising awareness for these kids, these moms, these parents who so need it.\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-08T01:01:09Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://mcgarvey.house.gov/media/press-releases/transcript-of-congressman-morgan-mcgarveys-remarks-on-premature-awareness-month"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.1469470337033272, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}