Each year 500 children are born in Hamburg earlier than expected, weighing less than three pounds at birth. Often premature infants spend many weeks and months in the incubator on the intensive care unit. During this time the hospital becomes a second home for the parents. Support groups for the parents of premies have formed in recent years at some hospitals in the greater Hamburg area. In the year 2000 the parents support groups of the hospitals Altona, Barmbek, Eppendorf, Heidberg and Wilhelmstift merged to form the organization "Frühstart". We are members of the umbrella association "Das frühgeborene Kind e.V." We have focused the following topics and would like... to share practical knowledge and process our experiences to promote the dialogue between parents, physicians and staff to recommend physicians, physical therapists, psychotherapists, and institutions with programs for early intervention to provide information about local administration, health insurance companies and financial support for the time after the hospitalization to give recommendations of books and review specialist literature to organize celebrations for children and vacations for mothers with their preemies to invite experts for lectures to improve ambulatory aftercare to increase the well-being of the small patients and their parents, e.g. by the acquisition of special clothes and more comfortable chairs for kangaroo care.