The White House Gets into the Parenting Biz

Say what?
That’s right, the White House has kind of gone into the parenting business. Today, they announced the launch of a free mobile health information service, text4baby, for pregnant women and new mothers. All women can get FREE health information via text messaging on a regular basis as it corresponds to their due date and child’s birth date. It’s kind of like getting our Pregnancy Weekly on your mobile phone (but written by doctors and probably without the humor).
This is awesome. One out of eight pregnancies end in premature labor and providing basic prenatal information to pregnant women who may not otherwise receive it can only be a good thing. Ninety percent of Americans now have cellphones and texting is especially prevalent amongst women of childbearing years and minority populations.
Women interested in the service can sign up by texting BABY to 511411 (or BEBE for the Spanish version) and they’ll receive up to three SMS health messages per week at no cost to them. The cost of the incoming text is completely covered by the wireless carriers. This is truly a public service.
Hopefully we’ll see it rolled out and available in other languages as well.
For more information go to www.text4baby.org
(Homepage photo by timsamoff)