Health Education Programs

The Safe to Sleep^® campaign seeks to educate parents and caregivers about the importance of placing babies on their backs to sleep for naps and at night to reduce the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). The campaign also describes other ways to reduce the risk of SIDS and other sleep-related causes of infant death, such as suffocation.

NICHD offers the CE Program on SIDS Risk Reduction: Curriculum for Nurses for CE credit, as well as dissemination materials for nursing CE partners

The Media-Smart Youth: Eat, Think, and Be Active program is an interactive after-school education program for young people ages 11 to 13 that teaches them to analyze, evaluate, and create media messages-skills that can help them make smart, positive choices about nutrition and physical activity every day.

The NICHD's National Child and Maternal Health Education Program (NCMHEP) provides a forum for reviewing, translating, and disseminating new research in the field of maternal and child health through a coalition of the nation's most prominent health care provider associations, federal agencies, nonprofit maternal and child health organizations, and other partners.

NCMHEP’s Know Your Terms initiative educates consumers and health care providers about the definition of full-term pregnancy. In the past, a baby born anytime between 37 weeks and 42 weeks was considered "term." A pregnancy is now considered "full term" at 39 weeks.

NCMHEP’s Moms' Mental Health Matters initiative focuses on depression and anxiety around pregnancy. Historically, much of the research on women's mental health related to pregnancy has been on depression that occurs after the birth of a baby. Current research indicates that this can occur outside of the postpartum period and includes more than just depression. These conditions can have profound effects on the health of the mother and her child.