B’More for Healthy Babies

The B’more for Healthy Babies Campaign is a citywide initiative directed by the Baltimore City Health Department and the Family League to reduce infant mortality and improve the health of mothers and babies. B’more for Healthy Babies is built on the realization that reducing infant deaths will happen only if people throughout the community play a part – whether it’s the leaders of the key city agencies, physicians, nurses and social workers; community groups and teachers; or fathers, grandmothers, caregivers and pregnant women themselves.

For the first time, Baltimore has created a strategic initiative that brings together the right agencies and people to improve an often-fragmented health care system and reach families that are hardest to serve. We believe that collaboration and cooperation among institutions is vital to our goal of reducing infant mortality and improving the health of Baltimore families.

The initiative has built a range of cross-sector partnerships with key agencies and nonprofit organizations and is working on many levels. We’re working with key officials to strengthen policies, collaborating with nonprofits to reach the community broadly, and supporting grass-roots community outreach to provide one-on-one education and support for women and families. And the initiative has launched a citywide media campaign focused on safe-sleep practices for infants.

The initiative is focused on two Baltimore neighborhoods, Upton/Druid Heights, and Patterson Park North and East.

The initiative will have three phases:

• Healthy and Safe Parenting – This stage is focused on making sure babies sleep safely, a key step in reducing infant deaths.
• Healthy Pregnancy –This second phase will stress the importance of prenatal care, smoking cessation and other services to improve family health. Community-based groups will identify pregnant women and get them into prenatal care. Home visiting programs will be strengthened. New education and outreach activities will be launched.
• Healthy Baltimore – This phase will focus on the importance of good health on a person’s ability to lead life to the fullest and have healthy babies. A key component will be the B’more Fit for Healthy Babies Coalition. Click here to learn more about this Coalition.