Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies Campaign

Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies – The Montana Coalition (HMHB-MT) is working to create a public messaging campaign to combat the stigma associated with asking for help with mental health and unhealthy substance use. The campaign will target women who are struggling with these common problems during pregnancy or in the early years of their children’s lives.  This stage of life, referred to as the perinatal period, is unique as it typically signifies an increased engagement in health care and a higher level of motivation for behavior change. Unfortunately, stigma is a large barrier to women accessing the needed care and resources to overcome these health issues. HMHB-MT’s campaign will address this barrier by increasing awareness of the prevalence of women experiencing these health issues, by letting women know healing and support is available, and by working to decrease experiences of shame and isolation that prevent women from seeking care.

To date, HMHB-MT has reached out to folks across the state to find ongoing planned public messaging campaigns, examined national campaigns for best practices and conducted a series of focus groups with the target audience.  The focus groups offered incredible insight into what messages women with this experience wish they would have heard and what helped them in their recovery journey. The focus groups also offered a chance to test some messaging and imagery.

As we enter the production phase of the campaign, HMHB-MT is looking for help from those who are interested in building an impactful and broadly appealing statewide campaign that all levels of our family and perinatal support systems can use to reach and engage women.  Please reach out to Stephanie Morton ([email protected] ) to help us let women struggling with substance use know that they are not alone, there is help and they can have the future they want for themselves and their children.