Text4Baby: Using mHealth to improve outcomes for mothers and children

• In Event: Community Building via Technology

Abstract

Text4baby (t4b) is the first mobile information service designed to promote maternal and child health through text messaging. Text4baby is a free service of the nonprofit National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition (HMHB) that provides pregnant women and new moms (up to age one) with information to help them care for their health and give their babies the best possible start in life. Women who sign up for the service will receive approximately three free SMS text messages each week, timed to their due date or baby’s date of birth. These messages focus on a variety of topics critical to maternal and child health including: breastfeeding, nutrition, seasonal flu, immunization, mental health, injury prevention, oral health, safe sleep, and also works to connect women to prenatal and infant care services. Since its launch in February 2010, t4b has successfully enrolled nearly 700,000 users. In Illinois, nearly 30,000 users have enrolled, making it the fifth largest state for t4b enrollment in the country.

In this session, an overview of the t4b program will be provided, as well as a discussion about successful outreach strategies, at the national and state levels, particularly as it pertains to enrolling populations of color. Finally, some thoughts about text4baby’s contribution to the mHealth landscape and how this and other innovative dissemination methods might be used to reduce health disparities will be presented.

Social Media

www.everthriveil.org

Author

• Janine Lewis, EverThrive Illinois