
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, May 10, 1993                   TAG: 9305100284
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: F2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

LYNDA ROBB CARING FOR THE BABIES

LYNDA ROBB, wealthy daughter of a late president and wife of a U.S. Senator, could be devoting her considerable time and energy to jockeying for position in Washington, D.C., social circles.

Instead, to her credit, she's publicizing the need to reduce America's indefensibly high infant-mortality rate.

The other day, she testified before a Senate committee on the need for federal funding of a simple program that has demonstrably helped cut the rate of infant deaths in some parts of Virginia and in other states.

It involves visits by volunteers and paid workers to the homes of at-risk, mostly poor, often unmarried, pregnant women - many of whom are still children themselves.

These visitors provide counseling and information - on nutrition, on medical care, on parenting skills, on home safety. For many of these pregnant women, home-visitation may provide the only counseling they get. They typically lack health insurance, and rarely if ever see a doctor for prenatal care.

Funds for this program are likely to be included in the health-reform package being shaped under the leadership of Hillary Rodham Clinton. But Robb has reason to worry that it might not survive congressional revisions.

It's time politicians started paying attention to infants, even though they don't vote. America's infant-mortality rate - 9.2 deaths for every 1,000 births - is a national disgrace. It is higher than 19 other industrialized nations'. For Virginia and Roanoke, the rates - 10 deaths per 1,000 births - are even higher.

Two dozen other countries also have better rates of healthy-weight births. Low birth-weight infants - weighing less than 5 1/2 pounds - account for 60 percent of those who die before their first birthday. And those who survive are likelier to have disabilities.

Most infant deaths can be prevented, through such simple - and enormously cost-effective - concepts as the person-to-person home visits advocated by Robb.

Cost-effective? Consider that America's hospital bill just for crisis care for low-birth-weight babies amounts to about $2 billion a year.

Studies have shown that at-risk mothers who receive counseling through home-visits are more likely to get their babies immunized against disease. These babies are also less likely to be physically or mentally abused. In almost every way, their development is better because it gets off to a healthier start.

Lynda Robb is onto something that deserves more attention.

by CNB