By Jamie Shuster

Last month we announced that our four regional Public Health teams were launching a twelve-week challenge to enroll our clients in Text4Baby, which is a free cell phone text messaging service for pregnant women and new moms. Moms and dads can sign up by texting “BABY” to 511411. They then receive text messages three times a week on how to have a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby. The messages are timed to the pregnant woman’s due date or the baby’s date of birth.

Our public health teams across the state have been hard at work to help our clients sign up for this innovative health education service since the challenge started on August 1. They’ve done such a great job that during the first two weeks of the challenge, South Carolina led the nation among medium sized states in the number of signups for Text4Baby.

So far, our Midlands team is leading the way, signing up 103 new moms for the service between August 1 and 9. Upstate came in second with 44 new signups, followed by Lowcountry with 35 signups and Pee Dee with 33.

Thank you to all of our Public Health staff members who are helping connect new moms to this free health education service and keep up the great work.