Our Story

Our Mission

Baltimore Healthy Start Inc. is committed to improving the health and well-being of pregnant, post partum, and interconceptional women, their babies, and families, by providing comprehensive, supportive services in the communities where they live.

From the Doorstep, to the First Step                              and through the Lifecourse...
 

Baltimore  Healthy Start, Inc. (BHSI), a 501(c) 3 non-profit corporation, was established by the Baltimore City Health Department in 1991 to implement the original federal healthy start infant mortality reduction initiative (infant mortalityis the death of an infant before the age of one).  Now, 20 years later BHSI  is a nationally recognized success in reducing infant deaths and helping families have healthy babies. BHSI serves pregnant, postpartum and interconceptional women and their families living in Baltimore’s most socially, economically and medically depressed communities.

Thirty-three percent of the 98% African-American residents in Healthy Start's targeted communities live in poverty with a median income of $22,629 (vs $30,078 for Baltimore City) and more than half did not graduate high school.

Healthy Start recruits pregnant and postpartum women (with a child less than six months) who live in  one of our targeted communities. New enrollees are connected to a Neighborhood Health Advocate (NHA) who performs home visits and provides necessary support to clients until the client’s child is 24 months. Because one in four babies, born at very low birth weight (weighing less than 3.3. pounds), dies before the age of one, Healthy Start works to provide families the necessary support to deliver full term healthy babies.