Commissioner Martin on perinatal and early childhood programs
Commissioner Martin highlights DOHMH's direct services including the Citywide Doula Initiative, Nurse Family Partnership, and newborn home visiting programs. He shares stories of individual New Yorkers served and notes zero pregnancy-related deaths among doula program participants.
Our direct one-on-one services reach more than 10,000 pregnant or parenting New Yorkers every single year.
The Citywide Dual Initiative serves roughly 1,000 people each year.
We've reached more than 3,900 people since the program launched in 2022, and there have been zero pregnancy-related deaths among participants.
Behind the numbers are New Yorkers like Masada, a doula I joined to visit a young woman who left an abusive partnership during her second pregnancy.
She welcomed
her son into this world in January with Masada by her side.
Our nurse family partnership program serves more than 2,000 people every year, and that number will go up thanks to a $20 million investment in the Strong Foundations Initiative.
I learned of that program's impact by watching my mom, who served as an NFP nurse for nearly 15 years.
It's her example of public service I seek to emulate at this agency.
Our newborn home visiting program serves more than 7,000 families every year.
We dispatch community health workers to support families through the early days of parenthood.
People like Wanda who recounted what it felt like to hold a client's hand the day they came home from the NICU.
In the richest city, in the richest country in the world, no family should lose a loved one to pregnancy-related causes.
All of these programs are built on trust.
All of them are free of charge.
And all of them are making pregnancy and parenthood safer and more supported in New York City.