Sen. Carper Reminds Delawareans that text4baby Enrollment Contest Ends Monday

WASHINGTON – Today, Senator Tom Carper (D-Del.) highlighted the upcoming deadline for the nationwide 2013 text4baby State Enrollment Contest.  The national contest – which Delaware won in 2011 — ends this Monday, October 21^st. Text4baby is a free text-messaging service that provides moms and dads with important prenatal advice and healthy lifestyle tips.

“The text4baby program is a proven tool that helps accomplish one of my top health care priorities – helping patients get better health outcomes for less money,” said Sen. Carper. “This free and simple tool can help ensure healthier pregnancies and reduce health care costs that stem from a lack of access to important information about prenatal health. Together, text4baby and its partners work to promote better health by helping to provide moms and dads with the information they need to have the healthiest pregnancy and babies possible – an idea that we can all applaud. I encourage expecting and new parents in Delaware who have not done so already to utilize this helpful tool. In 2011, Delaware won first place in this competition, I hope we can bring home a victory once again!”

The national enrollment contest began on May 12 of this year, and as of October 12th Delaware was in fourth place in the small states category. The First State had an estimated 3.3 percent of pregnant and new moms enrolled in the text4baby program.

National organizations that are supporting the 2013 State Enrollment Contest include:

• American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG)
• American Public Health Association (APHA)
• Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs (AMCHP)
• Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO)
• CityMatCH
• March of Dimes
• National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO)
• National Head Start Association (NHSA)
• National Healthy Start Association
• National WIC Association
• Southern Governors’ Association (SGA)
• The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy

About text4baby

Text4baby is a free text-messaging service that provides prenatal advice and healthy lifestyle tips to expecting mothers and fathers. The advice is tailored to the woman’s projected due date and tips are sent three times a week in English or Spanish until the baby reaches one year of age.

Comprehensive prenatal health care is critically important in helping to reduce infant mortality rates and in improving the health of mothers and their babies. Unfortunately, many new parents without adequate health insurance or Medicaid cannot afford or easily obtain prenatal care. However, since over 85 percent of Americans own a cell phone and 72 percent use text messaging, Text4baby is an effective way to disseminate critical health information to underserved communities.

Text4baby was launched in 2010 by the National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition and partners with over 400 national and state organizations, including the White House Office on Science and Technology Policy, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Johnson & Johnson, and the March of Dimes. Over 500,000 people around the country have signed up for Text4Baby since the program began.

For more information, please visit www.text4baby.org.