Tonya Lewis Lee – a mother, attorney, writer, television producer and co-author of “Please Baby Please” with her husband, Spike Lee – is filming a documentary this week on infant mortality, low-birth weight and premature babies. Here she speaks with Advance Memphis Program Assistant Rosalind Hardy. Advance Memphis is an adult education facility near The LeMoyne-Owen College. (Photos by Christopher Parks)

Sound the alarm!  

The war against infant mortality is underway, fittingly, at ground zero –  Memphis, Shelby County, Tenn. – the place where more babies will die before their first birthday than anywhere else in the United States.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health’s initiative to raise infant mortality awareness uses college-aged, peer-to-peer educators. Youth advocates are going into schools and house-to-house to let peers know that healthy lifestyles before conception help produce healthy babies. They canvassed an area near The LeMoyne-Owen College on Wednesday.

Peer-to-peer educators Stephanie Cho, 21. (left) and Carla Caviness, 20, approach a vehicle near The LeMoyne- Owen College. Cho and Caviness have been trained to talk to their peers about the causes of infant mortality as part of a new campaign “A Healthy Baby Begins with You.”

Infant mortality in some parts of the U.S. is similar to the rates found in some third-world countries. Health leaders have begun enlisting young people for their battle to save those at risk.

Boot camp began in November when students from several Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) met for training in Nashville with federal, state and local health officials and with national “A Healthy Baby Begins With You” campaign spokesperson Tonya Lewis Lee, the wife of filmmaker Spike Lee.

This week in Memphis, 20 armed and ready PPEs (preconception peer educators) from LeMoyne-Owen College, Lane College, Fisk-Meharry, Spelman College and Morgan State University went to schools and door-to-door, delivering the message that successful pregnancies and healthy babies require healthy choices and good medical care before conception.

The federal Office of Minority Health’s first College to Community Outreach Week, Higher Knowledge, Higher Services, kicked off Sunday with a press conference at Babyland, the Shelby County Cemetery. That was followed by a week of youth training, door-to-door canvassing and professional workshops culminating with the Community Baby Shower and Health Fair from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday, May 23 at World Overcomers Outreach Ministries at 6655 Winchester.

Local officials say more than 17,000 babies are buried at the Shelby County Cemetery, where a field of purple ribbons waved in the Sunday breeze and sun, marking the 402 Shelby County infants who died before their first birthday in 2006-07.  

At the press conference, County Mayor A C Wharton Jr. and Lee issued a call to action.   

“Every African American woman is in danger of losing her child at birth regardless of income or household,” said Lee, stressing the fact that infant deaths in Shelby County are twice the national rate and even higher for African Americans.

Infant mortality statistics show African-American babies here are three times more likely to die than white babies and college-educated African-American women in the U.S. have the same rate of infant death as lesser-educated white women.  

“These are not just differences,” Dr. Kenneth Robinson, former state health commissioner, told those present at the kickoff.  “These are disparities.  Disparities are differences that ought not to be.”

A new approach

The “A Healthy Baby Begins With You” campaign’s new focus on preconception health of women and men before pregnancy is designed to increase the number of healthy babies, say Office of Minority Health (OMH) officials.

HBCU student health ambassador Yolonda Spinks – who has been armed with facts and tips - said most pregnancies are not diagnosed until the fifth week and the most important part of the baby, the placenta, forms between weeks five and eight. So, prenatal care is not enough. A healthy lifestyle, daily multivitamin, exercise and healthy meal habits developed during adolescence and carried over throughout life will make a difference, she explained.

The HBCU team includes three LeMoyne-Owen students – Spinks and Zipporah Robinson, both seniors, and Carla Caviness, a junior. On Monday, they spoke to more than a thousand teenagers during High School Outreach Day held in general assemblies at three schools – Carver High School, Southwind High School and Memphis Academy of Health Sciences (MAHS).  

“We teach them the proper ways to take care of themselves so they’ll be ready to have a healthy baby,” said Spinks, who also works in Porter-Leath’s Cornerstone Program targeting infant mortality.

D'Ann Redd, a program coordinator at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, speaks with a student at Advance Memphis about the prevalence of infant mortality in the surrounding neighborhoods.

On Tuesday, they along with representatives of the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing trained 18 students at MAHS to be preconception peer educators who will train others to fight infant mortality.  

On Wednesday, they canvassed the College Park neighborhood delivering materials and information and attended a HIPAA health information and privacy workshop.  

Local Efforts

Established in 1986 by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Office of Minority Health (www.omhrc.gov) is charged with improving and protecting the health of racial and ethnic minorities through policies and program that eliminate health disparities. According to OMH deputy director Mirtha Beadle, the two-year-old Healthy Baby campaign has held health fairs in New Orleans, Biloxi, Miss., and New York.  

Memphis, however, is the first and only city where activities were planned for an entire week. The extended program is an indicator of the seriousness of the local infant mortality problem and a demonstration of the local commitment to find answers, Beadle said.

Shelby County Government has spotlighted the infant mortality crisis in recent years with an Infant Mortality Summit, co-hosted by Mayor Wharton and by Governor Phil Bredesen, and the creation of the Shelby County Office of Infant Mortality. The county government collaborative campaign is called “ABC: All Babies Count.”

Health Department officials said more than a dozen infant mortality reduction programs and agencies currently operate in Shelby County. These include the Healthy Start Initiative, Centering Pregnancy, Blues Project, Healthy Babies Campaign, MIHOW (Maternal Infant Health Outreach Worker) Program, Prenatal Care Program, Healthy Families Program and Fatherhood Program at LeBonheur, the Sunrise Program at The MED, March of Dimes’ Community Voices, Health Loop, HealthPlex, Christ Community Health Centers, Medplex, and HUGS as well as Porter-Leath.  

In addition, World Overcomers Outreach Ministries Church (WOOMC) has been named the National Ambassador Church for A Healthy Baby Begins With You Campaign.

National Spokesperson

“A Healthy Baby Begins With You” campaign spokesperson Tonya Lewis Lee said she was unaware of the infant mortality crisis in the African-American community until contacted by the Office of Minority Health two years ago.  

“I had no idea,” said Lee, the mother of two boys ages 14 and 12.  “I had to get involved and had to figure out a way to help. I have not suffered loss, but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel the loss. Every woman who plans to have a child should have the same opportunities that I’ve had.”

An attorney, writer, television producer and co-author of “Please Baby Please” with Spike Lee, she has been filming a documentary this week on infant mortality and on low birth weight and premature babies.  

She said the documentary will put a face on infant mortality and show what people are doing to bring down infant death rates.  She has been with the campaign since May 2007.