Stamford attorney Jonathan Shapiro's involvement with the March of Dimes is inspired by his sister's childhood struggles.

Photo Credit: Joseph Cole

Jonathan Shapiro

Photo Credit: Joseph Cole

STAMFORD, Conn. — When Stamford attorney Jonathan Shapiro flips open his business card case, white rectangles aren't the first thing that greet the eye. Instead, an old and slightly yellowed picture of his sister sits snugly behind the clear plastic window.

“She taught me what it means to live a life,” says Shapiro. His sister was born premature. A stroke and four heart attacks struck her before she reached the age of 12. She died young but not before teaching her younger brother to fight to give others a chance.

Three decades later, Shapiro is chairman of the Fairfield County branch of the March of Dimes and is vice chairman of the state board. The nonprofit group, originally founded to battle polio, now focuses on research aimed at improving prenatal and infant care and health.

“There are treatments today that would have saved my sister,” Shapiro says, praising advances in medicine. Nearly every leap forward in infant and child health care and medicine has been at least partially funded by the March of Dimes, according to Shapiro. “She was one month premature, but today we can treat and often give a favorable prognosis for children as much as 25 weeks' premature.”

The number of premature births is on the rise, according to Shapiro. He looks toward parents having children later in life and in-vitro therapies as possible clues. “With advances in medicine, sometimes you get the good and the bad,” he says.

But Shapiro feels the technology is keeping up with the issue. More babies are born prematurely, he says, but the treatment options are advanced. Shapiro puts his card case away and smiles at the inspiration he has found in his sister. “She was one of those people who didn't let anything get in her way.”

How has research funded by the March of Dimes touched your family?