The Iris Fund, founded by Ridgefield native Brittney Crystal, has a chance to participate on a panel during the 2024 South by Southwest Conference! Voting for the nonprofit's proposal, "From Advocacy to AI - How We Finally Prevent Preterm Birth!", is
live now.
According to The Iris Fund's proposal, you can whiten your teeth with tape but we still don't know what triggers even full-term labor. Why? In part because women were not mandated to be included in clinical trials until 1993 and women’s health still makes up a tiny percentage of the overall National Institutes of Health budget. We feel the repercussions of that daily, and at no more critical time than during pregnancy. Through basic science & innovation research, awareness and advocacy, The Iris Fund and the researchers they support are closing the research gap to better support women and their families to eventually prevent preterm birth and infant loss.
In early November, SXSW will announce the majority of accepted programming for the 2024 Conference on the SXSW website.
The Iris Fund was created by Ridgefield residents Brittney Crystal and José Aleman in loving memory of their daughter Iris Crystal Aleman who was born and passed away due to prematurity on July 15, 2017.
The Iris Fund works to understand what causes labor in a full-term pregnancy so that we can eventually stop labor from starting early - preventing preterm birth. Every year, at least 15 million babies are born prematurely. In 2021, in the United States alone, almost 400,000 babies - a population greater than that of Cleveland, OH - were born before their due date. The price tag in the U.S. is $30 Billion. With your help we’ll close these critical gaps in knowledge, provide piece of mind to all pregnant people with questions, and fund the novel (non-invasive) techniques to end preterm birth.
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Submitted by Ridgefield, CT
