B'more Fit for Healthy Babies

Overview

B'more Fit for Healthy Babies is a nutrition and fitness program for postpartum women in Baltimore City who want to lose weight and get fit. Weekly group sessions include Weight Watchers classes, exercise classes, grocery shopping tours, and tips on budgeting and food preparation. The community-based program is offered free to women who have a child or children under age 3 and meet income criteria.

The program is an initiative of B'more for Healthy Babies, a multi-year effort to reduce the alarmingly high rate of infant mortality in Baltimore City. Obesity is one of several risk factors of priority for B’more for Healthy Babies, in addition to infant safe sleep, smoking cessation, and birth spacing.

The private-public partnership offers an evidence-based weight loss approach that has been tailored to address barriers of affordability, access, and time constraints. The program is funded by the Office on Women’s Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and The Leonard and Helen R. Stulman Charitable Foundation.

Accomplishments

• B'more Fit for Healthy Babies has enrolled 200 women into the program within the first year.

• B'more Fit for Healthy Babies has created a partnership with Shopping Matters to bring guided grocery tours to 400 low-income women.