Healthy Mothers/Healthy Babies Coalition of Jersey City

The Healthy Mothers/Healthy Babies Coalition works to reduce infant mortality and improve the health and safety of women, children and family through the collaborative efforts of concerned citizens, community organizations, health educators, health professionals and public policy makers. This is done through the distribution of educational materials, participation at dozens of community health fairs, and the publishing of a quarterly newsletter, Coalition News.

Community Action Team (CAT): The Coalition serves as a vehicle for health professionals to identify gaps in health care services and assess perinatal mortality. HM/HB Jersey City serves as the Community Action Team (CAT) for the Hudson County Fetal Infant Mortality Review Committee (FIMR). FIMR brings together key members of the community to review information from individual cases of fetal and infant death in order to identify the factors associated with those deaths, determine if they represent systems problems that require change, develop recommendations for change and assist in the implementation of change.

Women Reaching Women: The Coalition provides funding initiatives to Jersey City based agencies that promote improved birth outcomes, provide services to enhance infant and child health care and sponsor health and safety education programs for Jersey City youth. Women Reaching Women is a program that addresses black infant mortality and morbidity through aggressive outreach efforts that bring women to prenatal and preconceptional care and provide individualized follow-up and targeted education. Other related supported programs include, cultural diversity training and education and teen pregnancy prevention.

Grassroots Activities: The Coalition organizes grassroots activities to raise awareness among community members regarding infant mortality, maternal, infant and child health and safety. Coalition members include concerned citizens, community organizations, health educators and health professionals.