Helping Families Thrive With B’more for Healthy Babies

Launched in response to Bal­ti­more City’s one-time record high infant mor­tal­i­ty rate — more than 13% in 2009 — B’more for Healthy Babies (BHB) has unit­ed more than 150 pub­lic and pri­vate part­ners to improve fam­i­ly health and well-being across the city.

The ini­tia­tive, fund­ed by the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion, is led by the Bal­ti­more City Health Depart­ment with sup­port from the Fam­i­ly League of Bal­ti­more, Health Care Access Mary­land and oth­er local partners.

In this Q&A, Casey Foun­da­tion Senior Asso­ciate Michael Cam­lin dis­cuss­es BHB, Baltimore’s declin­ing infant mor­tal­i­ty rate and the initiative’s impres­sive results over the past 15 years.

Q: The Foun­da­tion works to cre­ate a brighter future for chil­dren and their fam­i­lies. How does health care play a role in that mission?

Cam­lin: Health is con­nect­ed to every­thing the Casey Foun­da­tion does, from edu­ca­tion and employ­ment to men­tal and finan­cial well-being. And this is espe­cial­ly impor­tant dur­ing crit­i­cal peri­ods like preg­nan­cy and infan­cy, when the health of a moth­er and child is most vulnerable. 

Mil­lions of Amer­i­cans are unable to get the health care they need. But we know that when peo­ple can eas­i­ly access essen­tial treat­ment — like reg­u­lar check­ups for new or expect­ing moms — they are health­i­er and able to live more sta­ble, ful­fill­ing lives.

Q: Tell us about B’more for Healthy Babies. What impressed you about the program?

Cam­lin: B’more for Healthy Babies brings togeth­er a net­work of com­mu­ni­ties, orga­ni­za­tions and resources so that every baby born in Bal­ti­more can have the best start pos­si­ble. It works to reduce infant mor­tal­i­ty in the city by improv­ing health before preg­nan­cy, ensur­ing qual­i­ty care dur­ing preg­nan­cy, sup­port­ing fam­i­lies to raise healthy babies and mak­ing sure all fam­i­lies can access the care and ser­vices they need.

I’ve been impressed with BHB’s results and its explic­it focus on remov­ing bar­ri­ers to bet­ter infant and mater­nal health in neigh­bor­hoods fac­ing the great­est chal­lenges. In Bal­ti­more, Black babies are more like­ly to be born pre­ma­ture or under­weight. Black infants were also much more like­ly to die pre­ma­ture­ly when BHB launched in 2009.

BHB has achieved sig­nif­i­cant results over the past 15 years. By focus­ing on the Bal­ti­more neigh­bor­hoods with the high­est rates of infant mor­tal­i­ty, it has helped decrease the city’s over­all infant mor­tal­i­ty rate by 35%.

Q: Why do you think B’more for Healthy Babies has been successful?

Cam­lin: BHB has been able to achieve so much because of its col­lec­tive impact mod­el. It brings togeth­er peo­ple from dif­fer­ent sys­tems across the city — the health depart­ment, hos­pi­tals, clin­ics, social ser­vice providers, par­ents, faith-based insti­tu­tions and many oth­ers — to work toward a com­mon goal of reduc­ing infant mor­tal­i­ty while improv­ing mater­nal and child health in the city.

The result is a more coor­di­nat­ed sys­tem aligned on goals, mes­sag­ing and resources that reach moth­ers and fam­i­lies through­out their lives, whether it’s at a pre­na­tal care vis­it, dur­ing a flu shot or in the ER find­ing out they’re preg­nant for the first time.

Anoth­er rea­son BHB’s work has yield­ed such great results is its use of data to track mater­nal and child health. The data allow them to assess the dri­vers of mater­nal and infant mor­tal­i­ty in the city, using a con­tin­u­ous improve­ment process to adapt and respond as the envi­ron­ment changes. For exam­ple, when sleep-relat­ed infant deaths began ris­ing in Bal­ti­more, BHB respond­ed by launch­ing a ​“Safe Sleep” cam­paign to edu­cate par­ents on safe sleep prac­tices and dri­ve down sleep-relat­ed deaths.

Q: Sub­stance abuse and over­dose have become lead­ing caus­es of mater­nal mor­tal­i­ty in Mary­land. How has B’more for Healthy Babies responded

Cam­lin: BHB is now state-cer­ti­fied as an Over­dose Response Pro­gram. That means it can edu­cate med­ical pro­fes­sion­als, social ser­vice providers and Bal­ti­more res­i­dents about over­dose pre­ven­tion and train them in how to use nalox­one to reverse an overdose.

As part of this new focus, health care providers across Bal­ti­more are learn­ing how to bet­ter assess and respond to sub­stance use dis­or­ders and ensure that expect­ing moth­ers and their fam­i­lies are edu­cat­ed and equipped to pre­vent and respond to an overdose.

Q: What is B’more for Healthy Babies focused on going forward?

Cam­lin: BHB is mak­ing excit­ing progress in mul­ti­ple ways. Last year, a third com­mu­ni­ty site in Cher­ry Hill joined the exist­ing BHB com­mu­ni­ties in Upton/​Druid Heights and Pat­ter­son Park North/​East. The results we’ve already begun to see in Cher­ry Hill and around South Bal­ti­more have been very promising.

BHB also recent­ly launched a new city-wide Provider Por­tal to gath­er and dis­sem­i­nate resources for pre­na­tal and post­par­tum providers, health care admin­is­tra­tors and ear­ly child­hood providers across Bal­ti­more. This lat­est effort from BHB’s strate­gic com­mu­ni­ca­tions cam­paign will host a reg­u­lar­ly updat­ed resource direc­to­ry for health care providers across the city.

Last­ly, BHB is doc­u­ment­ing its mod­el to help com­mu­ni­ties out­side of Bal­ti­more City repli­cate its suc­cess. For exam­ple, the Pritzk­er Traubert Foun­da­tion is work­ing to repli­cate the ini­tia­tive in Chica­go and four oth­er loca­tions across the Unit­ed States. It’s incred­i­bly excit­ing to see BHB begin to share what it has learned with the rest of the country.

Learn how Casey is sup­port­ing mater­nal health in Atlanta