From the Desk of Ashley Bush, Text4baby, 12/19/2011

Ashley Bush                                                                                                                             

Text4baby is a free health text messaging service. It is the first of its kind here in the U.S. Text4baby was launched by the National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition (HMHB), in order to help more pregnant women and new moms get information about caring for their health and giving their babies the best possible start in life. Text4baby supports moms by providing accurate, text-length, health information and resources in a format that is personal and timely, using a channel that is familiar and frequently used.

With that said, Text4baby has just announced their early evaluation results from a study conducted by the National Latino Research Center at California State University, San Marcos and the University of California, San Diego Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology with support from the Alliance Healthcare Foundation. The study took place with text4baby users in San Diego County, California and included both in-depth interviews with 38 women and a phone survey with 122 users.  The study recently concluded in San Diego, CA, illustrates that text4baby is increasing users’ health knowledge, facilitating interaction with health providers, improving adherence to appointments and immunizations, and strengthening access to health services. The top findings are summarized below:        

• 63.1% of respondents reported that text4baby helped them remember an appointment or immunization that they or their child needed
• 75.4% of participants reported that text4baby messages informed them about medical warning signs of which they were not aware
• 71.3% of participants reported talking to their doctor about a topic that they read on a text4baby message
• 38.5% of respondents reported that they called a phone number they received in a text4baby message
• 53.3%of respondents without health insurance reported calling a service number.

As you can see from the results of the study, women enjoy and have responded well to receiving health information via text messages.  This is a great preliminary study of what great things are to come from the text4baby program. If you would like to join the text4baby movement, just follow these simple steps:

• Using your cellphone, text the word BABY (or BEBE for Spanish) to the number 511411.
• You’ll be asked to enter your baby’s due date or your baby’s birthday and your zip code. 
• Once registered, you will start receiving free messages with tips for your pregnancy or caring for your baby.

(These messages are timed to your due date or your baby’s birth date. If you are pregnant and your due date changes, text UPDATE to 511411 to enter your new due date. Once you have your baby, be sure to text in UPDATE with your baby’s birthday so you keep getting messages through baby’s first year. If you want to stop receiving messages from text4baby, texts STOP to 511411. To start receiving the messages again, you will have to enroll again by sending BABY to 511411 (or BEBE to 511411 for Spanish messages.)

Just recently it was announced that text4baby launched their first-ever text4baby web enrollment button. The text4baby enrollment button directs the user to an online registration form (in a new window) to sign up for the service. Click on the logo to test it out: