Healthy Mommy - Healthy Baby

“Healthy Mommy - Healthy Baby” helps to reduce the number of low birth weight babies, infant deaths and sickness within the ethnic communities of Montgomery County. Our Certified Community Health Workers and Registered Nurse conduct regularly scheduled home visits, educating parents on prenatal and postpartum care, along with information/education on toddler health and care through age two. We also offer an education support group for expectant and new fathers, as well as experienced fathers.

Eligibility

Eligible participants are pregnant women and girls, preferably in the first trimester (first three months) of pregnancy that may be at risk for a poor pregnancy outcome. Examples of poor pregnancy outcomes that could occur include low birth weight babies weighing less than 5.5 pounds, babies being born prematurely before 37 weeks, babies with seizures or growth delays.
Based upon information from the Montgomery County 2010 FCFC report Healthy People 2010, Montgomery County ranked 7th in the state out of 88 counties in low birth weight babies.  The number of infant deaths within Montgomery County for the period of 2006-2010 was 268.  The infant mortality rate (number of deaths per 1,000 live births) was 7.6.  The infant mortality rate during this period for Caucasians was 5.9 and for African Americans the rate was 12.4. 
The goal of the Healthy Mommy-Healthy Baby program is to target women who may have risk factors that can contribute to poor pregnancy outcomes.  These risk factors include, but are not limited to: age, previous pregnancy with a poor outcome, homelessness, low income, under/uninsured, poor nutrition, smoking, abuse, etc. A complete assessment will be done prior to enrollment into the program by our Registered Nurse.  Upon completion of the assessment, the client will be assigned to a Certified Community Health Worker.
Clients are scheduled for home visits throughout every stage of the pregnancy, and remain with their assigned Certified Community Health Worker until the child reaches age two.
Home visitation includes:

• Monitoring client understanding of health education received from clinics, social service agencies, etc.
• Continuous monitoring of the health status of the expectant mother and newborn
• Making referrals to various agencies for assistance
• Reinforcing positive changes in health behaviors

 Source By: http://www.phdmc.org/health/community/hmhm