Giving Birth to the Joy of Reading

“You may find that labor hurts more than you thought it would. Try to relax and breathe slowly.”

So begins an article on giving birth in “Baby on the Way: Basics,” a magazine that delivers information on pregnancy and infant care to the 1 million pregnant women in the United States who are functionally illiterate.

The magazine is produced by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and the editors of Baby Talk magazine in cooperation with the Literacy Volunteers of America Inc.

Dr. Warren Pearse, executive director of ACOG, says the magazine aims to get medical information into the hands of those who need it the most: undereducated, low-income women who are most likely to forgo prenatal care and deliver low-birth-weight babies.

The articles--on health care, breast-feeding, nutrition and fetal development--are brief, straightforward and heavily illustrated. Sentences are short and medical terminology is eliminated. But the magazine looks slick and sophisticated.

The initial printing of 350,000 copies was snapped up almost immediately. “We have orders for more than 1 million, and they don’t stop coming,” says Morton Lebow, the former ACOG public relations director who developed Basics. A second edition is due this fall.

The hope is that Basics will encourage women to learn to read.

“We take women at a time when they’re motivated and teach them a skill that will benefit themselves and their children for the rest of their lives,” Lebow says.