Bredesen Announces Project to Reduce Infant Mortality in Nashville Neighborhoods

“The Governor’s Office of Children’s Care Coordination is committed to developing and supporting programs with a record of success in increasing survival rates among Tennessee’s youngest population,” said Governor Bredesen. “I’m pleased the state is funding this program to empower mothers in Davidson County with the education and support they need to increase their babies’ chances of reaching their first birthdays and beyond.”

 

“Mothers United for Healthy Babies” is based on the Maternal and Infant Health Outreach Worker Project developed by the Vanderbilt Student Health Coalition, and will take a holistic community approach to the issue of infant health.  Two mothers will be hired in each community to reach out to other mothers, do home visits and provide referrals, education and support.

 

“Programs addressing infant mortality often concentrate on how medical providers can change,” said Mary Bufwack, CEO of United Neighborhood Health Services. “This model focuses on how mothers in the community can become empowered to bring change to their own communities. ‘Mothers United’ will emphasize how mothers help mothers to keep babies healthy.”

 

The program will be implemented in several communities of Davidson County, where each week one baby dies before reaching his or her first birthday. Overall, one in ten babies is born weighing less than 5.5 pounds and at serious risk for health problems. The rate of deaths for African American babies is twice that of whites and has been climbing since 2004. At an even higher risk, one in five African American babies in the Napier and Sudekum housing weighs less than 5.5 pounds and is at serious risk for health problems. In the Edgehill community, it is one in six.

 

The Core Leadership Group, hosted by the Community Foundation, recommended the new program for funding to the Governor’s Office of Children’s Care Coordination (GOCCC). With support from the GOCCC, the Core Leadership Group brought together a number of programs and organizations to find ways to address the problem. 

 

“This was a community process that identified communities where the need was the greatest,” said Susan Miller of the GOCCC. “Davidson County accounts for nearly 10 percent of infant births in Tennessee, and this statistic compels our Office to support new infant mortality programs specifically targeting our local communities.”

 

United Neighborhood Health Services, Inc. is a private non-profit network of neighborhood health centers that have served Nashville for more than 30 years. Through it six Nashville neighborhood clinics, five-school based clinics, the Downtown Homeless Clinic, the Charlotte Avenue Youth Clinic, two mobile health units, and a clinic in Hartsville, Tennessee, United Neighborhood Health Services annually serves about 25,000 medically underserved people of all ages. 

 

Governor Bredesen unveiled another community-based infant mortality initiative in Shelby County last week. That program examines environmental, social, economic and medical facts to determine the exact cause of death of children less than one year old, including during the mother’s pregnancy. This information allows professionals to improve available community resources and service delivery systems.

 

The Governor’s Office of Children’s Care Coordination, the Children’s Cabinet and the state Department of Health continue to explore and develop new partnerships and collaborations with other state governmental agencies; local, municipal and county governments; community-based organizations; and business and faith-based communities that share the vision of seeing more babies survive to their first birthdays.

 

For more information, contact the Governor’s Office of Children’s Care Coordination at 615.741.5192.