Baltimore’s Infant Health Initiative Expands to Cherry Hill Neighborhood

B’more for Healthy Babies (BHB) — a long­stand­ing part­ner­ship that brings togeth­er more than 150 orga­ni­za­tions to sup­port baby and infant health in Bal­ti­more City — recent­ly opened its third site in the city’s Cher­ry Hill neighborhood.

The Cher­ry Hill site — a col­lab­o­ra­tion between the Sher­man Fam­i­ly Foun­da­tion, Cher­ry Hill Strong and Med­Star Har­bor Hos­pi­tal — will allow B’more for Healthy Babies to strength­en mater­nal and infant care in South Bal­ti­more. Since open­ing its doors, staff have been build­ing rela­tion­ships with health care providers and non­prof­its as well as expec­tant and new parents.

“This part­ner­ship will help ensure access to high-qual­i­ty care and var­i­ous social and fam­i­ly resources to sup­port the res­i­dents of Cher­ry Hill,” said Beth Keg­ley, Birth and Fam­i­ly Edu­ca­tion Coor­di­na­tor at Med­Star Har­bor Hos­pi­tal. ​“Togeth­er, we will strive to cre­ate a nur­tur­ing envi­ron­ment where fam­i­lies can expe­ri­ence safe, com­pas­sion­ate and per­son­al­ized care dur­ing their most pre­cious moments.”

Bet­ter Infant and Mater­nal Health in Baltimore

Since its incep­tion, BHB has worked toward bet­ter health out­comes for Baltimore’s infants and their fam­i­lies through eight focus areas:

1. Care coor­di­na­tion and home vis­its. BHB uses a cen­tral­ized intake sys­tem that ensures all preg­nant peo­ple with Med­ic­aid receive short-term care coor­di­na­tion and are con­nect­ed to ser­vices that are crit­i­cal to a healthy preg­nan­cy, such as home visits.
2. The ABCs of safe sleep. Through its Safe Sleep cam­paign, BHB has increased pub­lic aware­ness among par­ents of safe sleep best prac­tices for babies.
3. Obstet­ric care. BHB works with Bal­ti­more-area pre­na­tal care clin­ics and birthing hos­pi­tals to holis­ti­cal­ly improve the qual­i­ty of mater­nal health care patients receive.
4. Vac­ci­na­tions. BHB sup­ports Bal­ti­more City’s immu­niza­tion pro­gram, which pro­vides vac­cines to chil­dren, con­ducts dis­ease sur­veil­lance and works to decrease the spread of dan­ger­ous diseases.
5. Peri­na­tal behav­ioral health. BHB works with local men­tal health and sub­stance use dis­or­der treat­ment providers to improve poli­cies, prac­tices and qual­i­ty of care. It also helps par­ents quit smok­ing and lim­it babies’ expo­sure to sec­ond­hand smoke.
6. Nutri­tion. BHB teams help fam­i­lies access healthy foods, breast­feed­ing coun­sel­ing and exer­cise classes.
7. Fam­i­ly plan­ning. BHB helps ensure health care providers offer a wide range of birth con­trol options while sup­port­ing young people’s access to birth con­trol. It also sup­ports com­pre­hen­sive repro­duc­tive health edu­ca­tion in Bal­ti­more City Schools.
8. Child devel­op­ment. BHB con­ducts devel­op­men­tal and social-emo­tion­al screen­ings for babies and young chil­dren and has part­nered with the State of Maryland’s Ear­ly Child­hood Advi­so­ry Coun­cil to improve child devel­op­ment ser­vices in Baltimore.

Thanks in part to the efforts of B’more for Healthy Babies, the city of Bal­ti­more has seen:

• a 44% reduc­tion in the infant mor­tal­i­ty rate;
• a 49% reduc­tion in the Black-white dis­par­i­ty in infant mor­tal­i­ty rates; and 
• a com­plete elim­i­na­tion of the Black-white dis­par­i­ty in infant mor­tal­i­ty with­in Upton/​Druid Heights and Pat­ter­son Park. 

“B’more for Healthy Babies’ com­mu­ni­ty-led, inten­tion­al approach address­es the unique needs of our res­i­dents and tack­les inequities in mater­nal health and birth out­comes,” said Mary Beth Haller, the Bal­ti­more City Health Department’s Inter­im Com­mis­sion­er of Health. ​“This pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ship is a shin­ing exam­ple of how effec­tive and impact­ful com­mu­ni­ty col­lab­o­ra­tion can be. We look for­ward to con­tin­u­ing this essen­tial work and expand­ing our efforts to be inclu­sive of everyone’s needs.”

Launched in 2009, BHB is fund­ed in part by the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion and led by the Bal­ti­more City Health Depart­ment, the Fam­i­ly League of Bal­ti­more and Health­Care Access Mary­land.

Dis­cov­er how the Casey Foun­da­tion is sup­port­ing Black mater­nal health in Atlanta