Posted: 9/16/2015
County Commissioners honor Dallas Healthy Start program
When it comes to baby safety, the entire community – including parents, healthcare providers and the public - play crucial roles. In recognition of Infant Mortality Awareness Month, Dallas Healthy Start will be hosting the third annual Baby Buggy Walk in the Park, a health festival and 1.5-mile fitness walk.
This free family event will take place from 10 a.m. – 1 p.m. on Sept. 26 at the Diabetes Health and Wellness Institute, Juanita J. Craft Recreation Center at 4500 Spring Ave., Dallas, 75210. The Baby Buggy Walk provides an opportunity for families to come together for exercise and fun activities, to receive valuable health information and to enjoy a fun day in the park.
The Dallas Baby Buggy Walk is just one of more than a dozen such events being held this month throughout the U.S. to call attention to the link between healthy lifestyles, healthy families and healthy babies.
While the infant mortality rate is declining overall across the nation, rates still remain high in Dallas County, particularly among African American residents. From 2005 to 2008, African-American infants in Dallas County had a mortality rate of 14.0 deaths per 1,000 live births. Data available through 2011 shows that African-American women are still experiencing infant mortality at double the rate of their Caucasian and Hispanic peers in Texas and nationwide.
Dallas Healthy Start is a program of Parkland Health & Hospital System that seeks to reduce infant deaths, pre-term and low-weight births. The program offers services in seven ZIP codes that have the highest rates of infant deaths in Dallas County and provides prenatal and parenting education, well baby care, food and housing assistance, teen pregnancy and substance abuse prevention, among other services.
“Our goal is to spread the word that planning for a healthy baby begins long before a mother sees her baby’s face for the very first time,” said Niccole McKinley, Director, Women and Infants Specialty Health Ambulatory Practice at Parkland. “Continuous prenatal care, healthy eating, physical activity, a healthy lifestyle and family and community support are all crucial to ensuring that our youngest and most vulnerable have the best start in life.”
Dallas County Commissioners commended the efforts of Dallas Healthy Start on Sept. 15 with a resolution honoring the Parkland program’s service aimed at reducing infant deaths, pre-term and low-weight births.
The Dallas event is one of several Baby Buggy Walk in the Park festivals happening in cities across the nation this fall. The Baby Buggy Walk in the Park was launched in Baltimore in 2012 as a pilot project and became one of Baltimore Healthy Start’s signature Infant Mortality Awareness Month activities. This year, the National Healthy Start Association, with support from partners around the nation – including the U.S. Office of Minority Health Resource Center – engaged Healthy Start projects across the country to help make the Baby Buggy Walk in the Park a national event, with major cities across 13 states launching their own Baby Buggy Walk in the Park family festivals.
Earlier this month, Dallas Healthy Start held its seventh annual Infant Mortality Awareness Summit at Parkland, which focused on teen pregnancy and prevention, preconception health and a panel discussion on fatherhood.
For more information about the Baby Buggy Walk in the Park in Dallas County, please visit www.parklandhospital.com/BabyBuggyWalk or contact Dallas Healthy Start at 214.590.1670 or by email at judith.phillips@phhs.org.