LAREDO, TX — BCFS Health and Human Services’ Healthy Start Laredo (HSL) program earned grants from two philanthropic foundations for its work with mothers and mothers-to-be along the U.S.-Mexico border. The Enterprise Holdings Foundation and the March of Dimes have each awarded Healthy Start Laredo separate grants for specific initiatives in HSL’s array of programs and services.
The March of Dimes’ generous grant goes toward HSL’s impactful Becoming a Mom/Comenzando Bien program that provides free prenatal health education classes for expectant mothers to maintain and improve upon healthy pregnancies.
The March of Dimes is highly respected for its focus on maternal health and well-being,” says Araceli Flores, BCFS Health and Human Services-Laredo Associate Executive Director. “We acknowledge their teamwork and pledge to continue advocating for the cause of healthy mothers and their babies.
HSL will use the Enterprise Holdings Foundation’s grant to incentivize attendance to the Becoming a Mom program, providing cribs to the expectant mothers in the program that will help progress HSL’s safe sleep initiative.
“The initiative ensures that babies under the age of one year old have a safe sleep environment, being placed on a firm sleep surface by themselves and not sleeping in bed with others as many families are accustomed to due to lack of resources,” explains Flores. “Many of the families we serve in the colonias live entirely below the federal poverty level, and therefore do not have the means to purchase a crib.
The cribs will be given to those low-income families that have attended all nine sessions of the Becoming a Mom curriculum, received prenatal care in their first trimester, and attended all prenatal medical visits as indicated by the physician or practitioner.
Healthy Start is a nationally-recognized program of BCFS Health and Human Services that provides medical care and case management for women who are pregnant or raising a child under the age of two for the purpose of reducing infant mortality, preventing child abuse and assisting families in meeting basic health needs (nutrition, housing and psychosocial support).
Learn more about Healthy Start here.
