Part 2.

Part 3.

You can learn more about our Better Indy Babies & Healthy Families Programs here, or you can stay up to date by signing up for our monthly eNewsletter to get updates on events and ongoings!

• smoking during pregnancy
• infant having two or more siblings
• Medicaid enrollee
• unmarried
• infant low-birth weight
• less than high school education
• teen mother
• short spacing (under 15 months) between pregnancy
• poor pre-natal care
• adverse outcomes in prior pregnancy

Most of these factors are situations that occur BEFORE the child is born and even before pregnancy.

“Children younger than three years of age are the most likely of all children to become involved with Child Welfare Services, and they have the highest rate of victimization and maltreatment among all age groups.”

A child’s “mental health” refers to emotional well-being and positive social development from birth through age 5.  Services for at-risk households are crucial to prevent these young children from being neglected and abused. Promoting early childhood “mental health” through in-home visitation and parenting programs is a key element in preventing abuse and neglect.

This report was mainly done to research the possibilities of taking care of these children after they enter Child Welfare Services.  However, there are organizations out there that provide support for families, mothers, and siblings of newborns. Having the knowledge of where to find support services and resources is crucial to decreasing stress, breaking family history cycles, and increasing preventative measures to further reduce the risk of abuse and neglect.

Better Indy Babies and Healthy Families America are two resources provided by HealthNet throughout the Indianapolis community.  The staff here provide knowledge and support to families and parents who are pregnant or have children from age birth to 3.  You can help these two resources be of greater service to families in need.  Learn more about what tools are out there or donate directly by clicking here.

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Shop at Once Upon a Child?  Want to help the Better Indy Babies program?  Click on our ONCE UPON  A HEALTHY BABY tab to learn about our event on Saturday, January 28th!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvFXiGzDKgE?hd=1&w=480&h=360]

Meet – Better Indy Babies/Healthy Families

Better Indy Babies (BIBs) is a free home visitation program for expecting mothers. BIBs is designed to promote a healthier you for a healthy pregnancy. Our efforts assist in healthy fetal development and help reduce infant immortality rates, SIDS, and foreseen childhood health problems. Since 1989, the program has been providing prenatal care coordination services and served as one of two pilot projects funded by the Marion County Divisions of Family and Children Services.

Healthy Families – Marion I (HF) is a voluntary home visitation program that works with parents and children from the age of 0-3 for healthy growth and development for the child through a variety of services including access to health care and parent education.

So here are the four things you should know about Better Indy Babies & Healthy Families.

1.  Separate names, but they work together to make one great program!

   As you may have noticed from reading above, both programs basically serve the same purpose — only in two different stages of a child’s life.  Both work toward proper care and development for all Indianapolis children through home visitation.

2. Together they provided more than 12,364 home visits last year.

   The result of a home visitation program such as BIBs/HF is a researched success.  A Healthy Families program in New York with a similar sister program like Better Indy Babies was featured in a research study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine where ‘pregnant women and adolescents were randomized to either an intervention group that received bi-weekly home-visitation services or to a control group’.  And the conclusion was this:

   

   photo by paparutzi

   “A prenatal home-visitation program with focus on social support, health education, and access to services holds promise for reducing low-birth-weight deliveries among at-risk women and adolescents.”
   
   

3. BIBs/HF is filled with tireless staff who not only visit these families, but also become an integral PART in their lives.

   This is true and can be seen in an earlier blog post that gave a recap of the BIBs/HF Picnic & Graduation Ceremony.  Read that post!

4. Assistance to help sustain this great program is always a need!

   There are plenty of ways to get involved with this great group of people!

   • Donate new or gently used baby items to the BIBs Pantry at University Heights United Methodist Church.
   • Consider a small gift. We can’t understate the significance of even a $5 donation to the BIBs/HF programs.  Raise awareness and tell your friends that you donated to this great program!  Together, we can help all children in Indianapolis get a GREAT start to LIFE.

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Interested in BIBs/HF?  Want to learn more?
Questions about Low birth weight and infant mortality in Indianapolis?
Comment below!
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