Reducing Racial Disparities
Addressing Extreme Prematurity
Eliminating Sleep-Related Deaths
Our Leadership
More Information
New and expectant parents can find resources here that will help ensure a healthy pregnancy and give every baby the opportunity to celebrate his or her first birthday.
If you have a baby in your life, you want to do everything you can to keep that baby safe, happy and healthy. Whether you are a new parent or expectant parent, these resources can provide you with the knowledge you need to feel confident in caring for your infant.
One of the most important things new and expectant parents can do is to know, practice and share the ABCDs of safe sleep. Alone, on the Back, in a bare Crib, and Don't smoke.
We lose a kindergarten-size classroom of babies each year to preventable sleep-related deaths. In the past decade, 200 babies in Cuyahoga County died from preventable sleep-related deaths, almost all of them through accidental suffocation.
In that time, zero babies died who were Alone, on their Back, in an empty Crib.
Share the ABCDs of safe sleep with every person who cares for your baby, including relatives and child care professionals. Every nap and bedtime is either a risk, or an opportunity to be safe.
Birth spacing is the time from one baby’s birth until the next pregnancy. Studies have shown that pregnancies that are spaced less than 18 months after a live birth can lead to adverse birth results, including preterm birth.
CenteringPregnancy® is an evidence-based group prenatal care model that is proven to lead to better health outcomes for babies and mothers, and to decrease premature births.
If you or a loved one has experienced a preterm birth of a single baby and want to prevent another from occurring please read about 17P. This is a medication containing the hormone progesterone which can increase a woman’s chances of having a full-term baby. If you are pregnant and have already had a preterm birth of a single baby, be sure to talk to your health care provider if you think 17P might help you.
Count the Kicks is a downloadable app that helps expectant parents track baby movements during the third trimester of pregnancy. Counting kicks is a great way to get to know your baby and has been shown to reduce the occurrence of stillbirth, which occurs in 1 in every 167 pregnancies in the United States. Most providers recommend you begin counting kicks in your 28th week of pregnancy, or at 26 weeks if you are high risk or pregnant with multiples.
Explore First Year Cleveland’s programs and learn what our eleven action teams are doing to create solutions around our three priority areas of reducing racial disparities, addressing extreme prematurity and eliminating sleep-related deaths.
United Way offers assistance finding resources you may need as an expectant parent, new parent, or caregiver.
Simply call 2-1-1 anytime, day or night, or use their 24-hour online chat service.
United Way 2-1-1 Help Center provides free and confidential 24-hour access to a compassionate professional who will review your options for help, develop a plan and act as your advocate if you are faced with barriers to service. Simply dial 2-1-1 or chat online for assistance. Se habla Espanol.
If you or your organization would like to become involved in the work of First Year Cleveland, please contact us or learn about the many ways you can help be a part of the solution to save our babies.
1 of 22