NHSA's mission is to be our nation's voice in providing leadership and advocacy for health equity services and interventions that improve birth outcomes and family wellbeing.

In honor of National Infant Mortality Awareness Month, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution today supporting efforts to reduce infant mortality in the United States.  The resolution, H.Res. 260, was sponsored by Congressman Stephen Cohen, Democrat of Memphis, TN, and was cosponsored by 117 other Members of the House.

The resolution includes statistics related to the infant mortality rate in the United States, highlights the importance of prenatal care and concludes by stating that the “House of Representatives supports efforts to understand racial disparities and the rate of infant mortality in order to lower the rate of infant mortality in the United States.”

Speaking in support of the resolution on the House floor, Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn, Republican of Tennessee, stated:

“I am reminded of the Healthy Start program that was reauthorized and signed into law by President George W. Bush on September 3, 2008. Healthy Start provides services tailored to the needs of high-risk pregnant women, infants, and mothers in geographically, racially, ethnically, linguistically diverse communities with exceptionally high rates of infant mortality. The goal of the program has been to reduce the factors that contribute to infant mortality, particularly among minority groups and remains a very important program to help reduce the deaths of children each year.”

A copy of the resolution can be found here.

–Jon Terry, President, Capitol Youth Strategies LLC