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Citywide baby shower provides information
By Sean Barron
YOUNGSTOWN
A major first step toward increasing the likelihood of mothers having healthy babies is to provide them with valuable resources – and nowhere is that truer than in the Mahoning Valley, a health expert says.
“The idea is to bring resources … for expecting and new moms, so they know who provides what’s needed for them so they can have healthy babies,” explained Melvin Harris, a relations specialist with United Healthcare Community Plan of Ohio.
Plenty of such resources and information were on hand for that purpose during Saturday’s third annual Citywide Baby Shower & Community Health Fair at Arlington Heights Recreation Center, 801 Otis St., near downtown.
More than 20 vendors took part in the four-hour fair, which was largely to inform, educate and empower women regarding having healthy infants. Sponsoring the event was the Youngstown Office on Minority Health.
It’s imperative that new and young mothers have greater awareness of and use available resources, partly because the Mahoning Valley has one of Ohio’s highest rates of infant mortality, he noted.
In addition, Harris said, the state was ranked 48th in that category when he started at United Healthcare three years ago. That figure, however, has dropped largely because of further outreach and more efforts to better educate new mothers on good pre- and postnatal care, he continued.
Still, black babies in the Valley are dying at rates three times those of white ones, primarily because of poverty and added stress in the women’s lives, noted Erin Bishop, Youngstown City Health District’s commissioner.
“We’re trying to build up social supports for those women so they can have healthy babies,” she said.
Echoing that theme was Elaine Vrancich, United Healthcare’s clinical-practice consultant.
“We want to educate our young moms about getting their prenatal care so they have a healthy delivery and healthy babies,” she explained.
The agency also is concentrating on making it easier for women in the county’s “hot spots” to access resources and be educated so as to improve the rates of delivering such babies, Vrancich continued.
Attendees took brochures with information or tips for handling newborn babies, preventing sudden infant death syndrome, having safe sex, getting regular vaccines, lowering one’s blood pressure, installing car seats properly and incorporating healthful eating habits. Also available was help for those who have been sexually assaulted or are undergoing financial difficulties.
A vital piece to ensuring child safety is being aware of safe-sleep practices that include having portable, fold-up cribs that are free of items that can lead to suffocation, noted Stephanie Weigel, injury-prevention coordinator with Akron Children’s Hospital.
Also, parents should never allow their newborn babies to sleep in their beds, partly because the adults can accidentally roll on top of the babies, cautioned Weigel, who added that three babies die every week in Ohio in unsafe sleep environments.
Weigel noted that ACH also is conducting a pilot training program for Youngstown police officers and firefighters to better equip them for handling calls that pertain to infants in such danger of unsafe sleeping environments.
“They know what to look for to assess high-risk situations,” said Weigel, who noted the program will eventually be rolled out throughout Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties.
The fair also provided free health screenings to measure attendees’ body-mass index and bone density, courtesy of Mercy Health. In addition, Youngstown City Health Department offered free blood-pressure screenings.