Annamarie Saarinen
Annamarie Saarinen is an American health advocate, economist and co-founder of the Newborn Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization that aims to accelerate the pace of early detection and intervention for treatable newborn health conditions. Saarinen also co-founded Bloom Standard, a social impact innovation lab developing early diagnostic technologies for children in remote and resource poor settings. Life Saarinen is an adoptee, and she grew up in a small town in southwestern Minnesota. In 2008, Saarinen's daughter Eve was born with a critical congenital heart defect (CCHD) and survived two heart surgeries in the first months of her life. This experience inspired Saarinen to create the Newborn Foundation | Coalition and launched the country’s first multi-hospital newborn heart screening pilot in collaboration with a state department of health, with the purpose of making CCHD screening a standard of care in the United States. In 2011, the Newborn Foundation | Coalition successfully lobbied the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to include pulse-oximetry testing for CCHDs in their universal screening recommendations. The screening was endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Cardiology, the American Heart Association and the March of Dimes. As a result, all 50 states including