Healthy Baby Manitoba

Healthy Baby is a financial assistance program for nutrition during pregnancy. Healthy Baby is a two-part program that offers financial assistance and community programs to expectant and new families. The program offers friendly, informal prenatal and postnatal outreach programs, which center around nutritional and health information. The community programs offer social support and educational classes to encourage early, regular prenatal care and promote infant development. Pregnant women who live in Manitoba and have a net family income of less than $32,000 are eligible to participate in the program. Healthy Baby sends monthly checks to expectant mothers during pregnancy. There is a sliding scale based on income that is used to calculate benefits. In addition to monthly checks, additional information is included inviting women to participate in programs in the community, basic nutrition, and healthy messages.

The goal of the Healthy Baby program is to provide financial assistance and community support to low-income pregnant women in order to support the health of Manitoba’s future children.

Programs have been implemented in over 70 locations in Manitoba, and over twenty-six Healthy Baby groups were funded as of December 2002. Further development of the program is ongoing, and program developers are expecting to expand services to include outreach to geographically isolated women.