Background
Caring for a baby is so many things: tiring, rewarding, challenging, and heart-warming…to name a few. A baby’s first year of life can feel like an emotional roller coaster for parents.
While many new parents experience ups and downs, an estimated 15-20% of women (more than 600,000 each year) and up to 10% of men experience more significant symptoms of depression or anxiety in baby’s first year. Untreated, these conditions lead to worse outcomes for the parent, baby, and the entire family. Black and indigenous mothers are disproportionately affected.
That’s why we teamed up with a group of experts to help support new parents and babies as they begin their journey together. BOND is a 6-month stream of text messages for parents with a child ages 0-1 that addresses both parent and child wellbeing and mental health.
Participants receive 1 message per week (in addition to other Lantern messages based on child’s age and family’s zip code) that focus on bonding with their baby and keeping both parents and their babies happy and healthy.
Messages focus on self-care, tips on bonding with baby, connecting families to mental health resources, encouragement for new parents, and more. Strong, nurturing relationships from birth– referred to as early relational health–build the foundation for lifelong positive mental health development.
BOND messages were developed in collaboration with: The Alliance for the Advancement of Infant Mental Health, Insurekidsnow.gov, the Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health, Postpartum Support International, and Zero to Three.
Engagement
The program launched in March 2023 and to date, more than 7,800 caregivers have opted to receive the messages. This represents approximately 5% of the families we reach with a child ages 0-1.
While BOND messages are designed to be valuable to caregivers without requiring individuals to click on the linked resources, we can identify messages that resonated with caregivers by looking at the rate at which subscribers viewed the linked resources. The three most popular messages addressed infant mental health, trouble bonding with your baby, and handling separations. For example 28% of recipients clicked on the link associated with a message explaining what mental health means during infancy.
Impact
Lantern evaluated the BOND program by issuing three short, mobile-friendly surveys at the beginning, middle, and end of the program. The baseline survey had a 28% response rate, midpoint survey 5%, and final survey 4.6%. Many parents expressed that being a new parent was more difficult than they anticipated, and:
- More than 95% of respondents reported that the BOND messages were helpful and helped them feel seen and understood as they navigated early parenthood.
- Knowledge of who to ask for help about their baby’s social-emotional development increased, with survey 3 responses 32% higher than baseline.
- Knowledge of who to turn to for help if a parent was having a difficult time also increased, with survey 3 responses 26% higher than baseline.
- Ninety-six percent of respondents indicated that the BOND messages inspired them to take at least 1 action, including:
- snuggling or spending quality time with their baby (86%)
- taking time for self care (72%)
- sharing the BOND program with friends or family (55%)
- talking to friends or family about their needs as a caregiver (52%)
- contacting baby’s healthcare provider (50%)
- talking to friends or family about their baby’s needs (50%)
- contacting their own healthcare provider (30%)
- contacting one of the helplines or resources shared in the BOND messages (28%)