Welcome Baby
Welcome Baby is a non-profit organization that provides low-income pregnant women with a care package including all the supplies their newborn will require during the first four weeks of life.
Bedford local Sarah Steinhardt founded the charity, together with longtime friend, Juliet Fuisz, shortly after Sarah gave birth to her first child, Eli, in 2015, and after a serendipitous encounter with Juliet on the street in Manhattan, who was pregnant at the time when the two women reconnected. Sarah recalls, “Even though I had every resource and plenty of support, I was suffering from postpartum anxiety and finding the day-to-day of having a new baby challenging. When I bumped into Juliet and we started commiserating, we were wondering out loud how the heck any woman, especially women lacking stable housing or financial and familial support, manages to get through those first months with their newborn?!?”
“It seems like nothing could be more fundamental than being able to provide for a newborn’s basic hygiene, but some low-income women can’t afford even the most basic necessities,” Sarah explains, “and our providing a newborn’s necessities for a month often means scarce dollars can be applied to food and shelter. We’ve already delivered thousands and thousands of Welcome Baby care packages across 20 States! We include a month of diapers and wipes, two rash creams, a baby carrier, bottles, pacifiers, a thermometer, grooming kit, two pairs of footed pajamas, two swaddle blankets, four onesies, bath wash, moisturizer, and a baby’s first book. While there are other charities that focus on pre and post-natal care, like Good+, Room to Grow, and March of Dimes, and a lot of organizations that offer social services for low income families and children, we’re targeted specifically on the acute need for critical necessities in a baby’s first month.
“There are about 3.6 million babies born in the U.S. each year, and it’s estimated that at least 600,000 of those babies are born into poverty and 1.5 million are born into families paying for that birth with Medicaid, not even taking into account completely uninsured births” Sarah decries. “And the outsized positive impacts of making sure every baby has the basic necessities for at least a month include the long-term health and well-being of that baby, mother, and family, as well as reducing the burden on our healthcare and social welfare systems that results when babies endure poverty. Study after study shows that even brief periods of poverty in a child’s life - when their basic needs aren’t being met - can have lifelong negative impacts on almost every facet of that child's life. If we can interrupt part of this poverty cycle in one tangible way, we will see enormous benefits going forward.”
“At a very basic level I feel like we should all be indignant that any newborn is deprived of diapers and diaper cream. And yet there are newborns right here in our area…and everywhere else…born into situations where the mother simply cannot provide the basic necessities!” Sarah declares. “We’ve committed to providing enough packages to give to every baby in need born into Northern Westchester Hospital’s Prenatal Care Center and we’ve improved the lives of thousands of women and newborns in the immediate tristate area. A recent Welcome Baby recipient told us very simply, “I don’t know anyone and I have no money. I didn’t have any idea how I was going to do this.”
She continues, “Finland supplies a comprehensive newborn care package called an Äitiyspakkaus to every baby, that includes a year’s supply of the basics. Here, there are no State or Federal subsidies for the kind of basic necessities we are providing. And while we’re working on the legislative front trying to initiate a seachange in government funding, we’re fully occupied with trying to address the critical need as it exists today!”
“I started out stockpiling and assembling baby boxes in my house - and driving them to the Union Settlement in East Harlem, but the operation quickly outgrew our handspun capabilities and we now use a logistics company out of Florida to handle our procurement, warehousing, packaging, and shipping,” Sarah details. “We’ve managed to get the total cost of each delivered baby box down to $150. It’s the best investment we as a society can make…in anything! It helps to break the poverty cycle, it works to prevent all sorts of short-term and lifelong problems and costs, and it can lessen future social dependence.”
“Most importantly, we work to identify pregnant women in need. We partner with hospitals, clinics, County and State Departments of Health, and social workers to identify recipients, and we carefully keep anonymous data on who’s been served,” Sarah says about Welcome Baby operations.
“The thing is, we’re presently only serving a fraction of the need, and I want this to become the national standard of care for every baby born in the U.S.!” Sarah declares. “I’m dedicated to this cause, and we’re fortunate to have Bedford local, Mackenzie Mas, working full-time as Welcome Baby’s Director of Logistics & Partnerships and keeping things running smoothly. We’re looking to grow our wonderful and supportive Board of Directors with folks who can help fulfill our mission in some very specific and strategic ways. We presently buy almost everything that goes in our baby boxes via wholesale partners… and would like to have people on our Board with contacts at product manufacturers and other corporate sponsors that might supply products or services for our baby boxes for free. We’re also focused on finding Board members who can help to institutionalize our outreach and form relationships with organizations which can identify and distribute our baby boxes to appropriate recipients. We need a couple of lawyers or political types who can help us to get governmental funding and work on legislative changes at the States and Federal level.
And, of course, we would welcome any good hearted and like minded souls who can help us to raise funds for Welcome Baby.”
Sarah declares, “Welcome Baby is about making sure every newborn has the basic necessities to get started with life…it’s the least we can do!”
