Bluegrass for Babies helps infants get critical medical treatment

When Anne Schneider’s youngest son was born in 2008, he was immediately transported to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, where he underwent surgery for a digestive disorder less than 24 hours after birth.
 
“They were able to repair it, and we had this amazing experience, and basically, if he didn’t have this surgery—with the new technology and everything—he wouldn’t have survived,” Schneider says.  
 
To express gratitude for her son’s lifesaving procedure, Schneider, along with her husband, co-founded Bluegrass for Babies—a nonprofit dedicated to improving children’s health by ensuring they get the best start possible.
 
“My husband and I just really love bluegrass music, and it’s this music that really transcends generations,” Schneider says. “It’s this pure form of music that takes you back to traditional values, so it’s really resonating with people as the roots of American music and this pure form of traditionalism and family values.”
 
Schneider says it’s important to have people take a step back and realize what the most important things are in life, and to start to recognize basic needs while understanding how to “preserve and care for them.”
 
Prior to their first son’s birth, the Schneiders hosted a backyard bluegrass party each year, but in 2009 when they began Bluegrass for Babies, they decided to move the party from their backyard to a larger venue where they could raise money to support children’s health initiatives.
 
The organization’s fifth annual bluegrass concert will take place Sept. 21 at Sawyer Point and will benefit the Perinatal Institute at Cincinnati Children’s.
 
“It’s the division that manages all the babies—not just at Cincinnati Children’s—but any birth that happens within the Greater Cincinnati area, and also up in Dayton,” Schneider says. “So they have this wide ranging reach, and then within that, actually this year, we’re donating to the Center for Prevention of Preterm Birth.”
 
As of last year, the organization was able to raise about $80,000 dollars, which Schneider says she hopes to build upon so that other families don’t have to go through the anxiety that hers did during the birth of their son.
 
“They don’t know what caused my son’s disorder. It was caused by something that happened very early on in his life—during the pregnancy,” Schneider says. “But when I was going through the experience—just that anxiety that any parent goes through in that situation—it’s really hard emotionally and as a family. So anything that we can do to prevent that in terms of improving children’s health, that’s what we’re really sort of trying to do.”