SUMMER SNACKING
Summer is upon us, Cleveland! With longer days, summer vacations and varying schedules, it can be easy to forget about structured meal planning and regular cooking habits. Sometimes during busy or lazy summer days, a string of snacks throughout the morning and afternoon can even replace structured meals.  

Ohio’s First Lady, Fran DeWine, wants to bring a program to Cuyahoga County that could help reduce the number of premature births and increase a baby’s chance of celebrating its first birthday.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – With an eye on decreasing the state’s high infant mortality rate, the Ohio House passed a bipartisan bill Thursday that would expand smoking cessation, dental visits and health and lead education.

CLEVELAND, Ohio — In the first three months of this year, Cuyahoga County’s infant mortality rate showed a troubling and dramatic rise, driven largely by a jump in the number of extremely preterm infants born who are unlikely to survive, according to statistics released at a quarterly meeting of city-county infant mortality initiative First Year Cleveland.

The Community Needs:

150 Safe Sleep Hero Ambassadors!

5,000 Safe Sleep Heroes!

100% of Our Babies to Survive!

To learn more about becoming a Safe Sleep Hero click here...
 

Established in 2007, the Cleveland Office of Minority Health is committed to reducing health disparities among communities of color in Cleveland. As the Infant Mortality rates continued to rise in Cleveland, particularly among African American and Latino women, Frances Mills, Director of Community Health Initiatives for the Cleveland Department of Public Health and Director of the minority health office, knew that she had to get involved; not as an administrator but as a resident and health advocate.

What should you eat while pregnant? How much do you need to eat? Should you be following a specific diet plan? Registered Dietitian Jessica Jurcak, owner of On The Move Nutrition, LLC and Coordinator of the Healthy Cleveland Initiative at the Cleveland Department of Public Health, shares five tips below for healthy nutrition during pregnancy.

Living in today’s crazy social/political climate, oftentimes we don’t know what, if anything, will change. In turn, we pray on it, ignore it or just sit back and complain about it for fear that there’s nothing more we can do.

An August 2018 cleveland.com editorial piece noted, “The good news is that preliminary work to tackle this problem [of infant mortality] by First Year Cleveland — an unprecedented local public-private coalition of elected officials, hospitals, religious institutions, medical providers, educators and health researchers — is making inroads. Cuyahoga County’s infant mortality rate fell last year to 8.11 deaths per 1,000 live births, still too high.”
 

Did you know that for nearly half a century babies born throughout the Greater Cleveland area have been dying at rates close to those of third-world countries? And Ohio overall has one of the highest infant mortality rates in the nation. Unbelievable, right?