Prenatal care advice can land free on moms' cell phones

BALTIMORE — Aiming to cut down on the high number of premature births across the nation, a new program will offer words of advice for pregnant women and new mothers in a place that will be hard to miss: their cell phones.

The free text messages will be sent every week, and they will include information about such things as seeing the doctor, avoiding alcohol and cigarettes, and eating properly. And while it's just rolling out in some states, the program, called text4baby, has more than 18,000 women signed up for what's expected to be the largest nationwide health initiative using mobile phones.

Lead sponsors at the National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition say they hope to improve the statistics: A half-million babies are born prematurely every year in the United States, many of whom then suffer from lifelong maladies. About 28,000 die before their first birthday.

"We're trying to address the problem," said Elizabeth Jordan, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing and a board member of Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies. "We have over 300 messages we send based on the mothers' weeks pregnant or the baby's age."

The program is paid for with in-kind donations and support from the mobile technology company Voxiva, as well as cell phone companies, health insurers and health product manufacturers. Government and nonprofit groups such as Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies partnered to ensure the messages are accurate.

Jordan said anyone can sign up and benefit, but the targets include Spanish speakers and vulnerable women, such as those with lower incomes or without much access to computers or books.

What most of the women do have are cell phones. About 90 percent of Americans have a mobile device, and the industry says they sent 1.5 trillion text messages last year, making phones one of the most widely used technologies. Sponsors also say text messaging is especially prevalent among women of childbearing years and minorities, who face higher infant mortality rates.

There are other examples of text messaging in the health care arena, including doctors at Johns Hopkins Children's Center who text patients with chronic illnesses to remind them about appointments or to take their medications on schedule, which is a major problem.

Pediatrician Delphine Robotham communicates with patients this way and has been encouraging other pediatricians to do the same. A Hopkins pediatric HIV expert, Dr. Allison Agwu, also has been using texts to remind patients of appointments, and plans soon to launch a formal study of mobile-device use.