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Advice for new moms, via text

Pregnant women and new mothers in Michigan can now get free text message tips on raising healthy babies. The state Department of Community Health has partnered with a national program called "Text-4-Baby," which sends tips on infant health to people’s cell phones.

Angela Minicuci is with the department. She said the texts provide a lot of information.

“Critical information for birth defects, for immunization, nutrition, seasonal flu information, mental health, oral health, safe sleep tips, different things that women may need to know, both during their pregnancy and once the baby is born to make sure that both themselves and the child will be healthy,” said Minicuci.

Minicuci also said that giving advice via text makes sense.

“Research has shown that 85 percent of Americans own a cell phone, and 72 percent of users offer text messaging,” said Minicuci “So that’s a very good number, a very large portion of the population, and text4baby is going to help, I think, address that population that we need to reach.”

Minicuci said the goal of the text-message system is to help reduce infant mortality rates. Michigan’s infant mortality rate is 7.7 deaths per 1,000 live births. That’s above the national average.