About MomsFirst

MomsFirst is a home visiting program that helps mothers succeed during and after pregnancy. MomsFirst participants are assigned a Community Health Worker (CHW) and may stay in the program until your baby is 18 months old.

Our CHWs provide:

• Home visits or face-to-face visits at least once a month.

• Support to pregnant women throughout their pregnancies.

• Support to help ease the stress that comes with becoming a parent.

• Education on care before and after baby arrives, breastfeeding, mental health, family planning, and more.

It does not matter whether you are a first time expectant mom or an experienced parent, MomsFirst will work with you and continue to support you until your child turns 18 months old. Our mission to help mothers and families have healthy babies.

MomsFirst was established in 1991 as the City’s Healthy Family/Healthy Start Program. Since then the program has evolved and today our primary goal is to reduce the number of African American families who experience the death of a newborn before the first birthday and to improve birth outcomes for all families.

MomsFirst is funded by Federal Healthy Start Initiative, Cuyahoga County Invest in Children, the City of Cleveland General Fund, First Year Cleveland, and the Ohio Department of Medicaid.

The MomsFirst Project’s external evaluator Case Western Reserve University prepares an annual Local Evaluation Report examining the impact of our work.

Understanding the Racial Disparity in Infant Mortality

Historically, solving infant mortality meant increasing access to prenatal care. Although previous intervention strategies improved earlier access to care, there was no significant decline in the number of infant deaths.

We now understand that the contributing factors to infant mortality are complex.

In applying the social determinants of health framework, we know that the impact of issues such as poverty, inadequate housing, lack of quality education, and racism, have an adverse effect on health outcomes.

By viewing infant mortality through this lens, health disparities are more easily understood and the interventions necessary to assist become more apparent.

In 2015, Your Story on Film, in collaboration with the Ohio Department of Health, Cuyahoga County Board of Health, and NEON, began working on a documentary to tell the story of infant mortality, its impact, its root causes, and its solutions. "One Life" debuted in April, 2016.

Ohio Equity Institute

The Cleveland/Cuyahoga Partnership to Improve Birth Outcomes (Ohio Equity Institute) is a community driven effort to reduce infant deaths.  

Beginning in 2013, the focus of this group has been to select, implement and evaluate equity-focused projects. Upstream and downstream approaches were selected and have been implemented throughout Cuyahoga County. The upstream approach is to promote the use of LARCs (Long-Acting Reversible Contraception) and the downstream approach is to implement group prenatal care (CenteringPregnancy) more equitably in our area.

The Ohio Equity Institute (OEI) is a group of concerned professionals and community members who work in or have an interest in maternal and child health. They meet on a monthly basis to assist our community’s most vulnerable families.