BY DAKOTA TAIT
A seven-day trek is setting off across Costa Rica this Friday to raise money for Hunter research into premature births.
Borne HMRI is a collaboration between the Hunter Medical Research Institute and the UK initiative Borne, with the aim of finding answers for what causes preterm birth, and how to prevent it.
Former Wallaby Captain Dean Mumm helped found the local branch four years ago - he and wife Sarah have lost four children to pre-term birth.
"Would you walk across the country for your children?" he said. "We're a very literal group, it seems."
"You would walk across the country for your children - we just happened to choose one that's maybe a bit thinner than Australia."
Mr Mumm will join six other Aussies in the 280 kilometre coast-to-coast trek from the country's Caribbean to Pacific shores.
Seven Brits are also taking on the trek, as well as a doctor, a pair of guides, and former British SAS officer Allen Chambers.
Mr Mumm says it's an important initiative, and one which will always hit close to home.
"One in ten babies in Australia are born preterm," he said. "Roughly about 26,000 per annum."
"We as a family, my wife and I, we've unfortunately lost four children, simply because they were just born too early. If any of those things happened later in gestation, our children would've been here."
"Australian researchers are pretty excellent, and particularly those at HMRI. There's lots for us to do, and lots for us to collaborate on across the globe using Australian researchers."
