US mothers get baby tips by text

Mothers in the US are to get pregnancy and childcare advice sent to their mobiles in a bid to cut the country's poor infant mortality rate.

Women who use Text4baby get weekly messages timed to their due date or baby's birth date, with tips on food, immunisation, and cutting smoking and drinking.

Organisers hope the effort can curb premature births, which can be caused by poor nutrition, excessive stress, smoking and drinking alcohol. About 500,000 babies are born prematurely in the US each year and 28,000 infants die before their first birthday, according to the Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition.

"The real scary thing is that we're an industrialized nation and we're not doing very well on infant mortality," said the group's director, Judy Meehan.