On Wednesday, Anna Faris shared a never-before-seen photo of her son, Jack Pratt, as an infant. She shares her boy with her ex, Chris Pratt, and both rarely ever share images of him. The superstar podcaster shared the photo to highlight a cause close to her heart.
Jack was born nine weeks ahead of his due date in August of 2012. Now, Faris’ experience is motivating her to raise awareness around preterm births.
Anna Faris’ Premature Son Was Born Weighing Just 3 Pounds 12 Ounces and Spent an Entire Month in the Hospital After He Was Born.
“Please join me in supporting GAPPS (the Global Alliance to Prevent Prematurity and Stillbirth) on Thursday, May 6th at 6:30pm (PDT),” the Mom star shared along with the photo. “I will be sharing the story of my son’s preterm birth 8 years ago as part of @healthybirths 60 minute virtual fundraiser.”
A different photo of premature Jack with mama Anna was shared by the GAPPS Instagram account on the same day.
Chris Pratt and Anna Faris, who were married from 2009 to 2018, have always been open about their experience with their premature baby boy. They explained at the time that Jack was born weighing just 3 pounds and 12 ounces and spent his first month in the NICU.
In 2015, Faris spoke with Redbook Magazine about her experience giving birth to Jack. “My water broke in the middle of the night at seven months,” she said in the interview. “We rushed to the hospital and they were able to halt active labor with magnesium.”
“I was at the hospital and the goal was to be in bed for four weeks… but on the seventh day, I went into labor again,” she told Redbook. “I was in denial. For hours I was like, ‘I’m just having indigestion.’ Chris and I were so scared, but when Jack came out, even though he was so tiny, he looked so good to us.”
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In her memoir, Unqualified, she explained the “emotionally exhausting” weeks that followed, People reported. “The pediatric neurosurgeon sat Chris and me down to tell us that Jack had some severe brain bleeding and there was a chance that he could be developmentally disabled,” she wrote in the book.
Anna and Chris’ advocacy for premature babies and preterm births extends beyond Faris’ fundraising efforts with GAPPS. From their perspective social media accounts, they have continued their fight for children who need specialized care.
Chris now shares daughter Lyla, 8 months, with wife Katherine Schwarzenegger Pratt. Anna Faris confirmed her engagement to cinematographer Michael Barrett in Feb. 2020.
“In the United States, about 380,000 babies are born prematurely each year,” the March of Dimes website states. “The preterm birth rate (the percent of babies born before 37 weeks each year) is 9.8 percent in the United States. This means 1 in 10 babies is born too soon. The U.S. preterm birth rate is among the worst of high-resource nations.”
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Those numbers are staggering. So, there’s still so much work to be done and so much more learning on this topic that needs to happen so real change and different outcomes occur. The writer of this very article was born a month and a half early and weighed only 4 pounds at birth, and also spent an entire month in the hospital. There are a bunch of premies out there!
Although Anna Faris and Chris Pratt are is no longer together, it’s excellent to see that they both still continue to fight for a cause that hit close to home for both of them. We encourage you to visit GAPPS and to learn more about what you can do to help.