Latest / Rick Outzen: (we don’t) color on the dog / Infant Deaths: A Tale of Two Cities
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- speaker-0: New report is out by the state. Every year they report on infant and fetal mortality in the state. By region, we're region one. we've got some good numbers and some not so good numbers in it. We saw our fetal mortality rise from four four point four to five point seven per 1,000 births. We saw our infant mortality fall from six point nine to six point one, which is good, but we're still above the state average. on that number. The person who really watches this and and looks after b maternal care and healthy start it's a healthy start coalition. We have with us Alison Anderson. Alison thank you for joining us. speaker-1: Thank you for having us, Rick. speaker-0: You know, it's we're you were teasing me before that I got the report before anybody. The only reason I know about the report is last year y'all we sat down and you explained to me what was going on. Looking at this report, what were your takeaways? speaker-1: A tale of two two cities, if you will. Mm-hmm. As you pointed out, we've seen tremendous improvement in our infant mortality in our community. But on the flip side of the coin, and equally important, is we're turning the wrong way in fetal mortality. And that's what Healthy Start exists to do to address those issues in our community and make improvements with our partners and friends across the Scambia whenever we can. speaker-0: Well that's that probably should have been the first question I asked you because I got r I'm a numbers guy, I go right into the numbers and you know me. But but for our for our viewers who d don't know much about Healthy Start, the coalition, tell us a little bit about it. speaker-1: Healthy Start was formed in 1992 and it was created as a statewide program where we have 32 Healthy Starts across Florida, and our mission is a healthy start for every baby, with particular emphasis on reducing fetal and infant mortality, reducing low birth weight babies, and prematurity. And so we exist to move the needle on those data metrics. And we do that through our home visiting programs. And those are coordinated by registered nurses at our local Department of Health. So that at our core is what we exist to do. We have other wonderful, great programs that we're we also are entrenched in the community on, but home visiting is the core nugget of our mission and who we are and what we do. speaker-0: Well and the other thing that y'all do is y'all analyze every death. Yes. So we're getting a real good view of what's if there's a trend or there's something happening. I know one notice I noticed one stat I noticed Allison was on unintentional causes of death with infants, which was particularly high, over almost thirteen percent. speaker-1: Right. And what you have also know know and the community should understand, those that number, there is a great disparity in our community between white babies and babies of color. if you are a brown or a black baby, your infant mortality rate is nearly three times as high as that of a white baby. but the data metrics that you point out tell us that Unintentional injuries are a leading cause of death. And what are unintentional injuries? we're just coming out of the summer, drownings. We've had several high profile drowning deaths in our community. we do safe swim programming at Healthy Start during the swim season. Accidental suffocation deaths, those are among the most tragic and moon breaking that we see. What does that mean? It means where a parent or a caregiver falls asleep perhaps and smothers the baby, rolls over on the baby, an exhausted new parent. Or the baby is placed in an unsafe sleeping environment with blankets and pillows. And little babies can't move their noses and their mouths to get out of trouble to breathe. And so we see far too much of that still. And that correlates to one of our signature programs, which is Safe Sleep. In our community, we provide what's called a pack and play. Used to be called play pen back in the day. Right? we provide pack and plays to any family who asks for it in our community. We fundraise to do it so that no baby goes to sleep in an unsafe space or environment. We also see car accidents. Rick, it would astonish you to hear that there are a number of babies who are transborn in our community without a safe car seat. They show up at the Healthy Start office at least a few times a month. is carrying the baby, someone's in the back seat carrying the baby. We provide a car seat installed by a certified technician to anyone who asks us for one because we fundraise to do it. Right. we don't want any baby travel and traversing this community without a car seat and a safe means of transport. speaker-0: All right, we've re we're gosh it always go so fast, Alice. But y w good news yesterday at the the children's trust meeting. we've got a couple of minutes. Tell us about the grant that you received. speaker-1: We are so excited. Our Scambia Children's Trust awarded Healthy Start $124,000 per year, three-year grant, total of $374 to launch a doula program in our community, which is something we have wanted to do for years. Why? A doula is a non-medical trained person in our community who provides educational, emotional, and physical support to a woman who is pregnant. Has newly delivered or within a year of postpartum? speaker-0: So wha why do you think this is helpful? speaker-1: Research tells us that one of the biggest indicators of maternal and infant health relate to maternal stress and anxiety. That dualer's role is to bring the temperature down and help mama through that whole process to bring her anxiety down, her comfort level up, build trust with her care team so that the baby is born as healthy as possible. We don't have so many of those preterm births and low birth weight births in our community. speaker-0: you we've we've we've got all your information up on the screen t throughout this interview, but i I think people should know th that y'all want people to call you. You won't you wanna hear. speaker-1: yes, we do. We do wanna hear. Eight five six nine six two two nine one. speaker-0: Well and and y'all have so many different services you can offer and it it's before and after. Zero speaker-1: Yes, sir. Zero to three. speaker-0: to three, which is great. Well Allison, thank you so much for coming. It's speaker-1: I appreciate the opportunity to be here. speaker-0: been a pretty good partnership, hasn't it, over the year? speaker-1: It has. We meet and we talk about heavy sad things, right? but there are strategies out there and we know what they are and at Healthy Start we're a small but mighty team that's trying to do something about them. And we're very blessed. We work with a partner, a community of partners that support us in our work. So we're delighted. speaker-0: Good deal. Well so much thank you. speaker-1: Thank you, Rick. speaker-0: We're we're gonna go ahead and take a break. This healthy start. Check it out. Go ahead and take a break. We'll be right back.