Healthy Babies The Healthy Babies Project is designed to identify and accelerate the adoption of prenatal solutions that lead to the birth of healthier babies, as well as neonatal health solutions that result in the best possible start in life for babies, particularly those deemed to be most at-risk.

Nancy Desmond CEO

The project brings together a collaboration of public and private sector leaders dedicated to the creation of a twenty-first century intelligent health system that results in healthier babies and decreases the prevalence of infant mortality.

Background

The percentage of babies born each year at low birth weights is 11.6% of total births, and the incidence is twice as high among African-Americans as among non-Hispanic Whites.

Low birth-weight infants are at a greater risk of death within the first month of life, as well as increased risk for developmental disabilities and illness throughout their life. Lifelong problems include chronic lung disease, adult-onset diabetes, coronary heart disease, high blood pressure, intellectual, physical and sensory disabilities, and psychological and emotional distress. Very low birth weight infants are also at higher risk for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.

In addition to the tragic loss of life and quality of life, the financial impact is considerable. In 2001, 8% of all infant hospital stays were related to low birth weight, but low birth weight babies accounted for 47% of the total cost of all infant hospitalizations and 27% of the cost of all pediatric stays. Yet this is only the tip of the iceberg, as ongoing health, treatment and special education costs related to the higher incidence of disabilities and illnesses among low birth-weight babies are adding unsustainable costs to our health and education systems.

There are at least three things every expectant mom can do to help reduce the numbers:

• Do not drink, smoke or use drugs during pregnancy
• Eat healthy foods during pregnancy
• Get regular pre-natal check-ups

An important element of pre-pregnancy is for women to take a multivitamin with 400 mcg of folic acid every day, to avoid neural tube defects in their babies.

• Increase in healthy behaviors and prenatal care for women during pregnancy.
• Increase in healthy birth weight of babies.
• Increase in healthy care for babies during the first year of life.
• Decrease in incidence of infant mortality, birth defects and disabilities.

The Healthy Babies Project focuses on defining and accelerating the adoption of solutions and policies that save lives, improve quality of life and save money, with three major priority areas:

Prenatal Solutions

Define proven solutions to prevent smoking, drinking and drug usage and to increase healthy nutrition of pregnant women and accelerate adoption of those solutions, particularly among women most at-risk.

Identify and accelerate the adoption of new solutions, including new tests, screenings and pre-emptive measures that result in healthier births.

Pre-pregnancy Solutions

Increase the number of women taking folic acid during child-bearing years, in order to prevent birth defects.

Neonatal Solutions

Identify and accelerate solutions that are proven to improve outcomes for low birth-weight babies.

Strategies

1. Constant scanning to find new solutions and policies.Building and meeting with key public and private sector leaders to accelerate the adoption of those solutions and policies.
2. Utilizing CHT leaders to communicate importance of solutions and policies to American public and other leaders. Identifying key leverage points and new breaking opportunities where we can have greatest impact.
3. Identify medical errors related to healthy babies and solutions to prevent them.
4. Building model in Georgia and then replicating in other states.
5. Using key projects through which to drive changes, including Medicaid, Elimination of Health Disparities, 21st Century Physician, etc.

Key Initiatives

• Add Healthy Babies solutions to CHT State Map, so states can learn from one another.
• Create Woman-to-Woman Project and series of conferences, with Healthy Babies as one topic. Build/communicate scoring model of cost and savings related to healthy babies.
• Build Healthy Babies into Medicaid Transformation.
• Add Healthy Babies to 21st Century Hospital Project, in order to accelerate adoption of solutions for healthy babies by hospitals.
• Healthy Babies roundtable and working group.
• Build model in Georgia.