Faculty Update: Cole Named to State Task Force on Prematurity

F. Sessions Cole, MD, the Park J. White Professor of Pediatrics and director of newborn medicine and Chief Medical Officer at St. Louis Children's Hospital, has been appointed to a special Missouri state task force to study premature birth and infant mortality.

Governor Jay Nixon signed legislation calling for the panel in July. The group will be made up of 18 panelists, including state legislators, health insurance workers, medical experts and parents of premature babies. In Missouri, one of every eight babies is born premature, and the infant mortality rate is seven babies per 1,000 live births.

Dr. Cole has cared for babies in the St. Louis Children's Hospital neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) for more than 25 years.He has led, completed and consulted on research for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Institute of Medicine (IOM), including the IOM’s landmark 2006 report Preterm Birth: Causes, Consequences and Prevention.

His expertise on subjects including premature birth, pre-conception planning, and assisted reproductive technologies have been chronicled in Pregnancy and Parenting magazines, ABC news, and The Wall Street Journal.