AWARENESS MONTH
The theme for international awareness month this year was newborn screening. We spent the month raising awareness of the fact that there is currently no screening for newborn babies in the UK. The majority of babies born with cCMV do not have symptoms so will not be diagnosed at birth. Screening all babies would mean that these asymptomatic babies could be monitored and offered antivirals if appropriate. 
As part of the month we had a petition and also a highly successful social media campaign led by Sue our new community fundraiser. We saw a huge increase in the number of people we reached on Facebook and Twitter and started an Instagram account.  Our website had a 23% increase in traffic from June last year. 
Awareness was raised on a national basis. We had three articles in the national press (The I, The Sun and The Mirror) and were on Radio Sheffield and in professional publications. At the end of the month we took part in a roundtable discussion with professionals to discuss the education of pregnant women on hygiene precautions. 
 
Thank you to all those families who shared their stories and helped us gain publicity for the petition. 
Please keep sharing the petition so we can reach 10,000 signatures. https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/587186 

Can you help us build on the success of our social media campaign? We are looking for volunteers to help us with social media and raising awareness. Details below. 
 
SOCIAL MEDIA & AWARENESS VOLUNTEER ROLES AVAILABLE
As you know CMV Action is a small charity with only 2 part time employees but we potentially need to reach every one of the 750,000 women who give birth in the UK every year. Social media is a brilliant way to do this. We had great success during our National Awareness Month with reaching new people and want to maintain the momentum but we need help to do this. If you are interested find out more here
 https://cmvaction.org.uk/news/social-media-volunteers-needed 
 
TRUSTEE NEWS
One of our experienced trustees, Kate, stepped down at the end of June. She will be missed by us all as she was passionate about raising awareness of CMV as a midwife and trustee and had led our successful webinars for professionals. Kate will continue to help us with talks and conferences and offer support. 
We are now considering appointing another trustee to our enthusiastic team. Details to follow. 
 
SCHOOL HOLIDAYS 
We are still offering support through the summer holidays so please contact us by phone or email. All our publications are available from our website. Please consider fundraising for us during the holidays too. 
 
THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR WONDERFUL SUPPORT
 
Amy, Angela, Jan, Liz, Sarah, Suzie and Tom
The trustees of CMV Action