Engaging and 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 first birthdays. In Ohio, each week, three babies die as a result of unsafe sleep environments. African American babies are dying at disproportionately higher rates from all causes including sleep-related infant deaths. As such, it is imperative that we reach Ohio’s communities to promote infant safe sleep messaging and adoption.
Information and 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 offer support and high-quality training to community-based organizations that connect directly with parents, grandparents, and other caregivers 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, supportive, and timely bereavement services to families who have suffered the devastating loss of a baby from a sudden unexpected infant death. The Baby 1st Network will remain an ongoing community of support, encouragement, and hope for families and we will support families in their efforts to honor and memorialize their children.
More information on our programs: