 To my thoughts for tiny talks, I am Dr. Mario Buquelo, a practicing pediatrician and a near therapist at Mangalore. Today November 17th is commemorated as the World Pre-Majority Day. Going back to history, this day was first started in the year 2011 and was coined by the March of Lime. And what was the reason for starting this day? This day was started to bring about awareness about the millions of premature babies born all over the world. It is mainly to bring about awareness about the problems faced by these babies and their families and how to prevent it coming to what is this prematurity. Now prematurity as defined is all babies born before 37 completed weeks of gestation or pregnancy. Now what is the theme of prematurity this year? The theme for this year 2023 is small actions with big impact. And what is the small action? The small action is nothing but skin-to-skin contact for every baby everywhere. Now why do we talk about these premature babies and what is the incidence of these premature babies in the world and in India? Now the WHO says that every year there are around 15 million babies born prematurely and coming to Indian statistics they say around 5-8% of these babies are born prematurely. And prematurity is one of the leading causes for death in children less than 5 years. So at an estimate around 1 in every 10 babies born are born prematurely and it is very important to prevent or to guide new mothers about how to prevent these premature deliveries. Now coming to the causes what exactly causes this prematurity? There are a number of cause some of which are preventable some are non preventable. Now coming to the most preventable causes of prematurity it is mainly related to the lifestyle of the mother, her health conditions such as presence of diabetes, presence of urinary infection, presence of hypertension, her lifestyle such as smoking or passive smoking or alcohol consumption these are the various things which can cause the mother to deliver prematurely. Now what are the preventive care that can be done? So there is a well organized group of doctors which include obstetricians and neonatologists which guide mothers from the time of conception through pregnancy and delivery and then going forward to the care of the newborn and forward. So at every step the mother is guided about how to prevent premature deliveries by advising them about the timely care in terms of timely giving proper nutrition proper examination prenatal counseling prenatal medications in order so that they deliver healthy babies at the right time. So friends it is very important that prevention is done very early in pregnancy or even before that for that awareness of this is very essential. So we all should join together in order to prevent the birth of this premature babies because these babies or these children are the future of our nation and caring for them and bringing up healthy children is going to be an asset for our own country. Thank you and all the best.