Features


Features
‘Without the education, it’s just a box’: Meena Nutbeam runs nonprofit to reduce infant mortality

For some, finding a true passion can take a lifetime. But for Meena Nutbeam, a junior studying public health, her “aha moment” came during the summer after her junior year of high school. Nutbeam, who is originally from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, created Stork & Company in the summer of 2014 after seeing an article in the BBC about why Finland’s babies sleep in cardboard boxes. "I saw that each parent gets a baby box [in Finland], which would be very beneficial for Milwaukee, where we have a lot of infant deaths due to unsafe sleep," Nutbeam said. Milwaukee, a city of nearly 600,000 people, has a very high infant mortality rate, with 15 infants dying per year as a result of unsafe sleep environments, according to Stork and Company’s website. “This past year through September, we have already had double the amount of infant deaths,” Nutbeam said.

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