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What is Healthy Start?
Healthy Start is a great way to have a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby. With help from the Florida Department of Health, the Healthy Start Coalition of Sarasota County provides services to help pregnant women have a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby.
How do you qualify?
Healthy Start begins with a survey that every pregnant woman in Florida is offered at her first prenatal visit. Answers on the survey are private. Women are referred to the Healthy Start Program if there are problems that may affect the health of you or your baby. If a woman qualifies for Healthy Start, one of our caring and expert Care Coordinators will contact her. They will provide education, support, and arrange other services which may be needed. The Care Coordinator wants to help pregnant women be as healthy as possible so the baby is born at the right time and is not too small.
A second Healthy Start survey for infants is offered when the baby is born. We want to make sure the baby gets the best start in the first year of life. If there are problems when the baby is born, Healthy Start services will be available if needed.
What is available?
Free Healthy Start services include:
• Phone calls or visits with a Care Coordinator, who is a trained nurse or social service worker
• Information about local resources
• Free classes in baby care, breastfeeding, and childbirth education
• Help to stop smoking
• Help to have a healthy pregnancy weight
• Help with high stress, difficult problems or post-partum depression
• Help with breastfeeding after the baby is born
• Check-ups of the baby’s health and development
• Free parenting classes
• Grief counseling
• Help with low-cost care seats
Many services are available in Spanish.
To contact the Healthy Start Program, call:
(941) 861-2905
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