Managed care organization Health Net releases PSA campaign on prenatal health

LOS ANGELES — Health Net on Tuesday launched a national public service campaign to help increase awareness of prenatal and infant health.



Created in collaboration with the National Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies Coalition, the campaign announcements encourage mothers and fathers to sign up for a free mobile health service called Text4baby.



Text4baby delivers timely health information during pregnancy and through baby’s first year via personalized text messages based on a pregnant woman’s due date or her baby’s date of birth. Messages focus on a variety of critical health topics, including immunization, nutrition, mental health, oral health and safe sleep. Text4baby also connects receivers to prenatal and infant care services and resources.



“Mobile phones can play a significant role in promoting prenatal, postnatal and infant health care by delivering accurate and timely information directly to both expectant and new parents,” stated Mary Beth Govier, director of Care Management for Health Net. “Text4baby joins our tool kit of prenatal resources,” she said. “Health Net also offers health coaches and Decision Power Healthy Baby, an online educational video series available free of charge to our website visitors.”



Anyone can sign up for the service by texting BABY (or BEBE for Spanish) to 511411.



The campaign — which features two 30-second television announcements — has been distributed to media outlets nationwide. The “Belly-to-Belly” announcement shows just the pregnant bellies of two friends talking about Text4baby. One pregnant mom is a Text4baby subscriber and shows her friend how to sign up. Accompanied by the song “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” the “Baby Photos” announcement shows photos of babies whose mothers used Text4baby. The mothers of the babies in the PSA received three Text4baby messages a week while they were pregnant and/or until their babies’ first birthday.



Text4baby already has reached more than 240,000 users since it began in 2010. Health Net was the first health plan in California to partner with Text4baby and provide statewide outreach in 2010. The company was one of the first Text4baby health plan partners in Arizona and Oregon.