Since February 2010, pregnant women and new moms have been receiving information to help them care for their health and give their babies the best possible start in life. This has been made possible by text4baby – a FREE text messaging service that sends 3 health messages to these women each week from pregnancy until the baby is 12 months old. Women can sign up for the free service by texting BABY to 511411(or BEBE for Spanish), and it’s even timed to their due date or baby’s date of birth.

The American Academy of Pediatrics was a key content reviewer of the text messages. These messages focus on a variety of topics critical to maternal and child health: immunizations, nutrition, seasonal flu, mental health, oral health, safe sleep, and more. Text4baby also connects women to health services through the inclusion of national hotline phone numbers within the messages.

Given the limited time available to discuss every health promotion topic, text4baby is an important tool to engage and reinforce the guidance pediatricians provide families based on the AAP Bright Futures Guidelines for Health Supervision of Infants, Children, and Adolescents, Third Edition.

To sign up, text BABY to 511411. To sign up for text4baby in Spanish, text BEBE to 511411.

Text4baby is an educational service of the National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition.