From: e-Dear Colleague Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2012 12:19 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Education, FamilyIssues: Dear Colleague: September is Infant Mortality Awareness Month September is Infant Mortality Awareness Month From: The Honorable Lois Capps Sent By: [email protected] Date: 9/12/2012 Do your constituents know about Text4baby? Dear Colleague:

September is Infant Mortality Awareness Month. As you may know, the U.S. infant mortality rate is one of the highest in the developed world, with more than 500,000 babies born prematurely each year and an over 26,000 children dying before their first birthday. This is unacceptable and, as a nation, we must do better. September is dedicated to raising awareness about this issue in order to help expecting mothers seek out the best possible preconception, prenatal, and perinatal care to improve their children’s health outcomes.

One innovative initiative to help address factors that contribute to the nation’s high infant mortality rate is text4baby. Text4baby provides pregnant women and new moms with three, free text messages a week timed to their due date or baby’s date of birth. The messages provide essential health information, in English or Spanish, about early and adequate prenatal care, immunizations, safe sleep, prevention of birth defects, avoidance of substance abuse, well baby care, injury prevention and other critical health and safety issues. Text4baby reaches women who need health information the most at a time when it's crucial, through a medium that is easy and convenient.

An educational program of the National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition, text4baby is a unique private-public partnership, harnessing the collective efforts of CTIA-The Wireless Foundation, Johnson & Johnson, Voxiva, the White House of Office of Science and Technology Policy, U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, and U.S. Department of Agriculture. As the nation recognizes infant mortality month in September, we encourage you to make your constituents aware of this excellent service and urge pregnant women and new moms to enroll in this program by texting “ “Baby” or “Bebe” to 511411. Moreover, text4baby is currently running a State Enrollment Contest. By simply speaking about text4baby (or tweeting it), individual members of congress can help increase enrollment numbers and significantly impacted their state's ranking. The top 3 winning states will be announced November 1 at the American Public Health Association annual conference. You can learn more and see how your state ranks at text4baby.org. Attached, please find a tip sheet on ways that you can showcase this valuable service and demonstrate your commitment to mothers and babies this September. Thank you very much for your support. Sincerely,

LOIS CAPPS BILL CASSIDY Member of Congress Member of Congress

ALLYSON Y. SCHWARTZ ANDER CRENSHAW Member of Congress Member of Congress