The  Care for Children with Birth Defects and Disabilities Initiative is a public charity campaign sponsored by FCD Cares, a division of  The Fund for Charitable Development, Inc., a 501(c)(3) Public Charity. The FCD Cares' "Children with Birth Defects Disabilities Initiative serves the unborn, the newly born, people living with debilitating birth defects, and their families. Its focus is on the urgent matters of education, care and monetary assistance for babies and their families in local communities. 

According to the FLORIDA BIRTH DEFECTS REGISTRY (FBDR) every five minutes, a baby is born with a birth defect. Major birth defects are conditions present at birth that cause structural changes in one or more parts of the body. Birth defects can have a serious, adverse effect on health, development, or functional ability.

Public Health Importance

• In the U.S., one in 33 babies is born with a birth  defect affecting about 120,000  babies each year. Not all birth defects can be prevented. A woman can take  steps to increase her own chance of having a baby with the best health  possible.
• Birth defects are one of the leading causes of  death in children less than one year of age - causing one in  every five deaths.
• Effects of birth defects can range from mild to severe  and can result in debilitating illness, long-term disability or death.
• Defects of the heart are the most common kind of birth  defect and cause most of the hospitalizations.
• More children and youth born with a disability are living longer with improved medical treatments enabling the management of long-term health problems. A life-course approach allows  planning across the lifespan to explore determinants of health and provide individuals, their families, and communities with guidelines to eliminate  many of the barriers facing people with disabilities today.
• Causes of most birth defects are unknown.

The CENTER FOR DISEASE CONTROL(CDC) estimates that, the cost of raising a child to the age of 18 is around $240,000 but that figure can quadruple for a child with birth defect disabilities. Most of that increase is due to the need to access special medical services on top of the special expenditures for food, clothing, housing and travel. A recent study that tackled these costs found families will spend around $10,000 annually in  extra-ordinary costs just for child medical services. Of course, every birth defect disability presents its own special circumstances and the extra-ordinary financial costs of birth defects often depend on the severity of the condition. These services are expensive, but don’t account for hospital stays, missed wages or emotional stress – perhaps the most wearing part of raising a child with special needs. When a child is born with a birth defect, the entire family is impacted by it. It can be a difficult adjustment for all involved and it’s important that each child receive the necessary financial support to help keep their family together. 

FAMILIES with Birth Defect Disabled children are faced three specific challenges in addition to those faced by all families, which taken together increase their risk of living in poverty: 1 Considerable additional and ongoing expenses, 2 The psychologic and emotional cost of caring for a disabled child and 3 Barriers to entering and sustaining employment. The cost of care, families with Birth Defects Disabled children face are considerable; additional expenditure on housing, heating, clothing, equipment and specially need items are much higher than families with healthy babies. It costs three times as much to bring up a disabled child as it does a non-disabled child. These extra costs associated with disability drive high levels of poverty among Birth Defect Disabled children and their families. Examples of additional extra-ordinary costs ranged from a Child that needs diapers each day to a family who lost their home to pay  for their extra-ordinary  expenses.

FAMILIES also struggle to pay to adapt their homes to keep their child alive. It is identified that as many as three-quarters of families with disabled children live in unsuitable housing and are at risk of becoming homeless. Most benefits do not consider these extra-ordinary costs. The overall benefits system does not acknowledge that Birth Defects Disabled children and their families incur additional costs burdens. We argue that the system fails to recognize the true cost to these families. 

WHILE there is no uniform definition of poverty, most people associate it with an inadequate standard of living that deprives families and their children from fully participating in society. This usually includes a lack of essential tangible resources, such as food, clothing, shelter, and income. This may include intangible resources or “human and social capital” when evaluating poverty, such education and employment attainment, life skills, networks and social connections.

LOW-INCOME families face numerous challenges in daily living and many of them are related to structural barriers found in society. The barriers include the persistence of poverty or near-poverty, limited access to social services, and unmet needs for food, clothing, shelter, health care, and other basic goods. 

WE can help our Children with Defects, Disabilities and their low-income, poverty level mothers and families be the beneficiaries of desperately need funds to pay for their extra-ordinary cost such as food, medical supplies/equipment, rent, car payments, baby clothes and other necessities that they need but are not covered by government agencies or other sources.