Our Work

Engaging & Empowering Communities

The Baby 1st Network is a leading resource for infant safe sleep information and training, and a valued collaborator in community efforts to reduce infant mortality. Our goal is to engage communities in initiatives to reduce sleep-related infant deaths and support their efforts with information, training and funding. 

By empowering communities with the tools and information they need, it is our hope that more babies will reach their 1st birthdays. Three babies each week die in Ohio as a result of unsafe sleep environments. Our African American babies are dying at disproportionately higher rates from all causes including sleep related infant deaths so it is imperative that we reach Ohio’s communities with the infant safe sleep message.  

Info & Training

Our priorities include holding community forums in areas with the highest infant mortality rates and delivering current, research-based information on infant safe sleep practices. We will also offer support and high-quality training to community-based organizations that connect directly with parents, grandparents and others who need to understand the importance of infant safe sleep practices. We will continue to provide mini-grant program funding to neighborhood and community groups for outreach projects to promote infant safe sleep practices and increased public awareness regarding the impact of sleep-related infant deaths, and ways to reduce these incidences.    

Family Support

We were founded as a resource for grieving families and this remains at the core of our mission. We provide compassionate and supportive bereavement services to families who have suffered the devastating loss of a baby from a sudden unexpected infant death and we will reach out to families following their loss with timely, compassionate support. The Baby 1st Network will always be an ongoing community of support, encouragement and hope for families for as long as they need our help and we will support families in their efforts to honor and memorialize their children.

More information on our programs: