1990 Campaign for Healthier Babies is launched, a comprehensive effort to prevent birth defects and infant mortality.
1991 March of Dimes researchers find genes responsible for Marfan syndrome, an inherited disorder of connective tissue, and Fragile X syndrome, the most common known familial cause of mental retardation.
1991 Laura Krumwiede, 7, is selected the first healthy child to serve as a March of Dimes National Ambassador. Laura was born 13 weeks early, weighing less than two pounds.
1993 March of Dimes Committee on Perinatal Health issues Toward Improving the Outcome of Pregnancy: The 90s and Beyond (TIOP II) to set forth new initiatives in health promotion and education, risk assessment, and access to perinatal care.
1993 March of Dimes introduces “Research Ambassadors” Ashanthi DeSilva and Cynthia Cutshall, the first Americans to undergo gene therapy. Both girls were born with ADA deficiency, an immune disorder that is usually fatal.
1994 March of Dimes launches national education campaign urging women of childbearing age to take the B vitamin folic acid to help reduce the risk of neural tube defects. From 1995 to 1999, neural tube defects decrease by 19% as a result of this campaign.
1995 March of Dimes grantees Edward B. Lewis of the California Institute of Technology and Eric F. Wieschaus of Princeton University receive the Nobel Prize for identifying master genes that control early structural development of the body.
1995 March of Dimes establishes the annual March of Dimes Prize in Development Biology in honor of Dr. Jonas Salk.
1996 The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves the fortification of grain products with folic acid, after three years of advocacy efforts by the March of Dimes.
1996 March of Dimes-supported research on nitric oxide leads to a new, non-invasive treatment to save babies suffering from persistent pulmonary hypertension (PPHN), a deadly lung disorder.
1997 March of Dimes adopts new “mother and child” logo with the themeline, “Saving Babies, Together.” Pregnancy and Newborn Health Education Center is launched.
1997 March of Dimes advocacy efforts help secure the passage of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP). The $40 billion, 10-year program is designed to provide health care coverage for nearly half of the nation’s 11.6 uninsured children.
1998 Congress passes the Birth Defects Prevention Act, establishing a nationwide network of birth defects monitoring and research programs, following six years of advocacy efforts by the March of Dimes.
1998 March of Dimes launches the Prematurity Epidemiology Research Initiative (PERI), a grant program for research on the medical, psychological, and social factors relating to premature birth.
1998 March of Dimes launches the National Folic Acid Campaign, a three-year, $10 million campaign to increase the number of women who know about folic acid and who take a daily multivitamin containing it. The campaign spanned five years, 1998 to 2002.
1999 March of Dimes grantee Inder Verma of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies successfully uses gene therapy to treat hemophilia. Grantee Alfred Lewin of the University of Florida College of Medicine successfully uses gene therapy to treat retinitis pigmentosa in the lab.
