May 14, 2014
Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians Commit to 1,000 Grandmothers Project
Dave Baldridge, Executive Director of the International Association for Indigenous Aging (IA2), is pleased to announce a partnership with the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians in North Dakota to work to address sudden unexpected infant deaths (SUIDs). This comes as part of a formal agreement signed by Chairman Richard McCloud of TMBCI.
The 1,000 Grandmothers project, conceived by IA2 and the Michigan Public Health Institute (MPHI) leadership, is working to identify innovative models for reducing childhood deaths in Native communities. The goal of the project is to enlist the assistance of tribes in the design and implementation of community-based initiatives to bring Indian grandmothers and other tribal elders together with new mothers to conduct focused mentoring and education on the prevention of SUIDs in culturally-specific surroundings and activities.
The goal of the joint project, funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), is to help prevent sudden unexpected infant deaths (SUIDs) in American Indian tribes. According to the CDC, approximately 4,000 infants die suddenly each year of no immediate apparent cause, with half being attributed to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). This is the leading cause of death among infants 1-12 months and the 3rd leading cause of overall infant mortality in the U.S. While rates have declined in the last three decades, American Indian and Alaska Native infants remain at a disproportionally higher risk than the remainder of the population.
Work is scheduled to commence this month.
Contact: Dave Baldridge, Executive Director
dave@iasquared.org
