Senator Asks Spotlight Be Put on Infant Death Rate

Sen. Lawton Chiles (D-Fla.) called upon Hollywood television producers and the news media Monday to spotlight the nation’s infant mortality rate: 40,000 deaths a year.

“We need to build a consensus for action on a problem that results in the deaths of as many infants as there are people dying from AIDS in this country every year,” said Chiles, chairman of the National Commission to Prevent Infant Mortality.

The panel, which met Monday in Los Angeles, has been charged with developing a national strategy for reducing infant mortality. The rate now averages about 10.6 deaths per 1,000 live births. During the last 20 years, the nation has slipped from sixth place to 18th among industrialized nations of the world.

“A child . . . born in Singapore will have a better chance of surviving its first year on Earth than a child born in the United States--even with our trillion-dollar budget,” Chiles pointed out at the commission’s “Hearing on Media and Public Policy.”

Asks for Dramatizations

He called for the tragedy of infant mortality to be dramatized on television and in newspapers.

About half the babies who die during their first year of life, experts say, are plagued by problems associated with low birth weight. Babies born too small are 40 times more likely to die during their first month of life. And even the survivors are likely to suffer mental or physical handicaps.

The good news, Chiles said, is that there is a solution to a big part of the problem. And it will not only save lives, but money too.

“Infants are dying in this country because they are born too small or too soon--or because their mothers didn’t get the counsel, the guidance, and the care that could have made the difference during pregnancy,” Chiles said.

Providing relatively inexpensive prenatal care to women during their pregnancy, experts say, would dramatically reduce births of sickly infants, who are enormously expensive to treat.

Good prenatal care, doctors say, consists of between 10 and 13 medical checkups beginning early in the pregnancy and includes tests that monitor the health of the mother and fetus.