A Welcome Addition : O.C. program is giving first-time parents training in infant care. It’s part of an effort to stop child neglect before it starts.

Buy an ant farm, and you get a set of detailed instructions. Same with lawn mowers, fountain pens, and even things as seemingly self-explanatory as mattresses and electric fans.

Indeed, new owners are automatically instructed in everything except the most precious thing: babies.

When Anya Wilson gave birth to Joshua eight months ago, her lack of child-rearing knowledge was compounded by her age--15--and what she says is a non-supportive family. Being pregnant, she couldn’t stay enrolled at Fullerton High School, and she says tension at home led her to move in with her boyfriend, Scott Paley, 19, and his parents in their Placentia apartment.

“I wasn’t close with Joshua at first,” Anya said. “I was very resentful. . . . I lost my friends. They don’t visit now. When he was crying it made me nervous because I didn’t know how to make him stop. Scott’s mother helped a lot.”

But in October, she heard about Welcome Baby, a support system for first-time parents that is believed to be the only one of its kind in the state. The program, administered by the Exchange Club Child Abuse Prevention Center of Orange County, provides information on child rearing in an effort to stop infant neglect before it starts.

The private, nonprofit Exchange Club center, supported by county funds and donations from 17 private service clubs in Orange County, trains volunteers to work with government-referred families who have abused or are at risk of abusing their children.

In the Welcome Baby program, trained volunteers meet with parents in their homes six hours a week for three months. They teach basic care techniques such as feeding, diapering and bathing, and discuss infant behavior and how to build trust.

To Exchange Club officials, the rising incidence of child abuse is more than enough reason to lend a hand to young couples who are feeling the pressures of parenthood. Between 1991 and 1992, reports of abuse to Orange County children under 1 year old increased 16%. The 2,390 reports were 6% of the 36,014 for all age groups recorded last year by the Child Abuse Registry of Orange County.

Among children 3 and younger, “we get a lot with prenatally drug-exposed infants, a lot of physical reports with spiral fractures (in which the bone is twisted apart), which is a classic child abuse injury,” says Ray Gallagher, registry director.

But neglect is the most common form of infant abuse and, through education, the most preventable, says Lois Wood, executive director of the Costa Mesa-based Exchange Club Center.

“There’s simply a lack of knowledge sometimes. Say, not knowing how to feed,” Wood says. “A child can literally be starving to death, and the parents don’t know what’s happening. The reality of parenting comes when you’re home with the tiny baby in your arms and you can’t get him to stop crying. Without love, attention or handling, a child can waste away, start to deteriorate.”

Wood came up with the idea for Welcome Baby after learning of a similar program in Winston-Salem, N.C. A $12,000 grant from PacifiCare and the Orangewood Children’s Foundation has funded the program since it began in June, and Wood is counting on another $30,000 grant for 1994.

Early intervention not only improves the infant’s quality of life, but also helps prevent taxpayer-funded trips through the foster care and welfare systems later on, Exchange Club officials say.

Many of the 27 Welcome Baby volunteers also work with the Exchange Club’s other child abuse programs, and all have child-rearing experience, Wood said, adding that more Spanish-speaking volunteers are needed.

Five single mothers have completed the program so far, and 19 clients are currently getting instruction, a number that program coordinator Denine Ellis hopes to double. Clients enter the program voluntarily, and most are told about it by hospital staff members, whom Ellis visits regularly to talk up the program.

Each year in Orange County, more than 4,800 babies are born to mothers 10 to 19 years old. These young mothers can be bewildered by the birthing experience, Ellis says. “When you’re at the hospital, if you don’t ask the nurses questions about the baby, they assume you know,” she said. “Then you get home and say: ‘Now what?’ ”

That’s when a friendly volunteer, armed with gifts of disposable diapers, a plastic bathtub and answers to perplexing questions, can be a welcome sight indeed.

Volunteer Beth Hansen recently made her second visit to see Anya, Scott and their baby. Anya’s bonding with Joshua had improved, Hansen said, although too much rich food over the holidays contributed to a diaper rash that concerned Anya. Hansen, 33, a mother of two, discussed skin care, diets for babies and the importance of a feeding schedule.

Joshua, alert and curious, knew he was somehow the center of attention, and to stay in that center was willing to maintain eye contact and ignore the colorful plastic toys that littered the living room floor. For the third session, Hansen said she plans to tour the three-bedroom apartment and point out dangerous household items and areas that need baby-proofing.

Hansen also volunteers as a parent aide for the Exchange Club, teaching parenting to families that are already in the child abuse cycle. The Welcome Baby program, she says, “has more joy involved, more happiness, because the baby has not been taken away from the parents.”

Anya and Scott say they plan to marry, but not before Anya gets her high school equivalency degree and Scott, who has graduated, finds steady work. Anya attends Horizon Education Center in Anaheim several hours each week.

In the meantime, she is grateful for the baby training.

“It’s very good. I wish girls who need help would do it,” Anya said. “You learn a lot of stuff. Also, it’s just somebody to be with, to talk to and be there for you when you need them.”