Free texting service helps moms

By NAKIA COPELAND

Sayeeda Coggins, 20, a cashier at Chipotle in Madison Square Garden food court, was well into her daily routine of getting her 7-month-old  son Godfrey ready for daycare in their two-bedroom apartment in the Bronx.

As she fed her baby boy his applesauce, her cell phone began playing “Girl on Fire” by Alicia Keys to let her know that she received a message. When she checked her phone, she saw a text message from a service called text4baby, offering  information about a developmental milestone for babies at her son’s age.

“When I found out that I was pregnant, I was freaking out. free run 4.0 v2 I just remember thinking that I don’t know anything about babies or what to even do now that I’m pregnant,” said Coggins, who found text4baby while searching for pregnancy information on the Internet . “One of my friends that recently had a baby at the time suggested that I go online and signup at different places to receive free coupons and products for the baby. While looking for these places I found text4baby.”

Coggins is one of the many women using a service like text4baby to navigate  the journey of motherhood. The State Department of Health has joined the list of sources that  used by Text4baby, a free texting service that provides new and expectant mothers with information to promote good health for their babies.

“Text4baby has reached over 500,000 women in the U.S. since we launched three years ago,” said  text4baby director Sarah Ingersoll. “Our messages are developed in partnership with the American Academy of Pediatrics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and other leaders in the field of maternal child health.”

To receive the free text messages, women can sign up for the service by texting BABY to 511411 (BEBE for Spanish) or online at text4baby.org. And each week, three free text messages will be delivered that are timed to the woman’s due date or baby’s date of birth. These messages focus on a variety of maternal and child health topics, including birth defects prevention, immunization, nutrition, seasonal flu, mental health, oral health, and safe sleep. Also, text4baby messages connect women to  services, including prenatal and infant care.

“Mothers should sign up for services like this because it is helpful and more convenient than going on the interment,” said Jenny Cooper, a nurse at St. Luke’s Hospital in Manhattan. “When I was first pregnant, something like this was not around. And I had to read books because I was not computer savvy at the time.”

According to the Health Department, about 8 percent of all babies born in New York State are low birth weight, a rate that has remained the same for more than a decade.

One of the priorities in New York State’s Prevention Agenda 2013 to 2017 is improving the health of mothers and babies. The goals include reducing the number of pre-term births by at least 12 percent and promoting  breastfeeding to improve the health of the infant and mother. And one of the interventions cited to achieve these goals is the development of effective health communications and social marketing campaigns that promote healthy behaviors.

“Information is a vital tool for pregnant women and new mothers, free run 4.0 v2 femmes and the State Health Department is pleased to offer a new resource to ensure babies have a healthy start in life,”  State Health Commissioner Nirav R. Shah said. “Text4baby will deliver messages on a range of topics so that mothers can learn about critical care issues such as nutrition and immunizations.”

The Health Department plans to promote text4baby throughout the state in high-need areas of six counties: Erie, Monroe, Onondaga, Albany, Westchester, and the Bronx. Posters and other marketing materials have been disseminated through bus stations, community partners and state agencies. Also, the text messaging service will be promoted on the Health Department’s social media sites to new and expectant mothers.

Text4baby is made available through a partnership that includes the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,  National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition, state and local government, corporations, professional organizations, and community-based organizations.

“I always get so excited when I see that my baby is already doing the activity that is in a text message,” Coggins said. “I know that not only is he developing correctly, but that he is also ahead.”

 

 

http://www.health.ny.gov/press/releases/2013/2013-02-26_text_moms.htm