BIDDEFORD — On Tuesday morning, Jennifer and Brian Burke’s 18-month-old daughter Hailey was having a ball. She was playing in the family’s living room that has been taken over with her toys, bestowed on her by doting grandparents and other relatives. The golden-haired toddler, dressed in jeans and a pink ruffled top, was at turns being read to by her mother, taking a pretend shopping trip with her play shopping cart and cooking up some imaginary meals in her miniature kitchen.

It’s hard to believe this little girl so full of life almost didn’t make it.

Hailey was 4 pounds at birth ”“ born six weeks premature. She had to spend 15 days at the Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital at Maine Medical Center in Portland, 10 of those days hooked up to a feeding tube.

“I was a mess,” said Jennifer Burke.

But by participating in the March of Dimes support group at the hospital, she and her husband made it through those difficult first days, she said.

The support from the March of Dimes “helped to brighten up what can be a very scary and sometimes a very sad situation,” said Burke.

That’s why the Burke family and others are participating in the March of Dimes’ March for Babies fundraiser this Saturday.

March for Babies, started in 1974, is the organization’s largest fundraiser, said March of Dimes spokeswoman Janelle LoSciuto. These walks are held throughout the nation; 12 are held in Maine. On Saturday, there will be a walk in Saco, beginning and ending at Young School, and another at Goodall Hospital in Sanford. On Sunday, the state’s largest walk will be held in Portland.

Each year, the March of Dimes in Maine spends about $600,000 in the state on research, advocacy and providing support to families with premature children, said LoSciuto. Most of that money is raised through the walks.

Last year, the organization raised about $360,000 through the walk, she said. This year’s goal is $400,000.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt founded the March of Dimes, originally the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, in 1938, said LoSciuto. Its purpose was to eradicate polio, a disease from which Roosevelt suffered, and schoolchildren were encouraged to go door to door collecting dimes to help achieve this goal.

In 1958, when polio was all but eradicated, said LoSciuto, a new mission was developed. It was to help mothers have full-term babies and conduct research to improve infant health.

Because of the help she received through the March of Dimes after her delivery, Burke said she wanted to help the organization help other families that are going through what she and her husband experienced.

“When you’re pregnant,” said Burke, “you paint the room, you pick out the name and buy the clothes. You don’t plan to have a baby early.

“I encourage families to think positively. It does get better,” she said. “And lean on the (March of Dimes) support services.”

For more information and for those wishing to register for the March for Babies walk, visit the website marchforbabies.org. In York County on Saturday, there will be two March for Babies walks, one at Young School, 36 Tasker St. in Saco and one at Goodall Hospital, 25 June St. in Sanford. Participants can register for the walk at either event on the same day, beginning at 8 a.m. Both walks begin at 9 a.m. There is no registration fee, and no minimum amount to be raised.

— Staff Writer Dina Mendros can be contacted at 282-1535, Ext. 324 or dmendros@journaltribune.com.