Des Moines Nonprofit Launches App to Prevent Stillbirth

Healthy Birth Day, a local nonprofit with a Count the Kicks public health campaign is holding a launch party for its new mobile Count The Kicks App. The party will begin at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at the World Food Prize Hall of Laureates, 100 Locust St.

Healthy Birth Day was founded by five Central Iowa  women, including state senator Janet Petersen, after each of them lost daughters to stillbirth or infant death in 2003. In addition to getting Iowa’s Stillbirth Registry law enacted and creating a parent-to-parent network for  families immediately following the loss of their babies, Healthy Birth Day – which is almost completely operated by volunteers – also launched Count the Kicks. The campaign encourages women to monitor their baby’s movements in the third trimester of pregnancy. Founders modeled Count the Kicks on a campaign in Norway that reduced stillbirths. In Iowa, 234 fetal deaths were recorded in 2006. As of 2012, that number dropped to 174.

Find out more: Healthy Birth Day