Fears Abound Over Prenatal Care at Clinics : Prop. 187: Gov. Wilson’s order making such programs for illegal immigrants one of his first targets sparks concern and outrage among workers. For now, patients can continue seeking medical help.

“I’m so scared, I am so nervous,” said the 25-year-old illegal immigrant woman, worrying about Proposition 187, the initiative that would cut off her medical care, after a prenatal checkup at the Venice Family Clinic.

Though she had two previous premature deliveries and is having complications with her current pregnancy, the woman said she is considering stopping her prenatal care, and is thinking about having her baby at home, in the one-bedroom apartment she shares with her husband and two daughters.

“They say we can’t go to the doctors if we don’t have all the papers,” said the woman, who was moved from Mexico City to Los Angeles by her mother when she was 15. “If I have to, I will have my baby in my house. I will do what I have to do.”

Proposition 187, which requires a halt to all non-emergency health care to illegal immigrants and requires health care workers to report them to immigration authorities, is expected to have broad public health ramifications.

But nowhere are the stakes quite as dramatic as they are for prenatal and well-baby programs.

Gov. Pete Wilson, in a post-election executive order, made prenatal programs for illegal immigrants one of his first targets. The executive order, issued Wednesday, represented the start of the 60-day notification period required by law before cuts can be implemented in the state-financed Access for Infants and Mothers (AIM) program.

The courts could block the order, but for now the Wilson Administration is drafting emergency regulations. A spokesman for the governor said all required paperwork should be in place within 60 days so that the order can be enforced.

Such basic services as blood tests, physician consultations, diet advice, ultrasound tests, and, after the baby is born, well-baby checkups will be cut off if the order is enforced. Physicians and health care experts have long considered basic prenatal care to be essential in guaranteeing healthy babies, and studies have linked lack of prenatal care with the delivery of premature and underweight babies and with learning disorders, even fetal alcohol syndrome.

During his first term, Wilson was instrumental in expanding prenatal services to low-income women. In 1989, he told The Times that the $1,200 cost of prenatal health care was well worth the money. “It is the best investment . . . if we are to determine if there are problems . . . and I am convinced that would eliminate many of the learning disorders,” he said then.

Sean Walsh, a spokesman for Wilson, said Friday he saw no contradiction between the governor’s earlier comments and his aggressive stance on Proposition 187. Walsh said that so much money is going into health services for illegal immigrants that the AIM program cannot afford to take care of all the legal residents of California who need prenatal care. He said Wilson has asked the Legislature to put all savings from the crackdown on health care for illegal immigrants into the AIM program.

Health administrators contend that the drop-off in patients seeking prenatal care will result in more emergency room cases--a much more costly situation for taxpayers. Under Proposition 187, emergency medical care would continue to be provided.

“Without prenatal care, a lot of high-risk cases will end up with complications and have to go to the emergency room,” said Dr. Son Nguyen, a physician at the Community Health Foundation of East Los Angeles, which has seen a steep drop in patients since Election Day.

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Wilson’s order Wednesday generated widespread alarm among health workers and patients.

The 25-year-old woman at the Venice Family Clinic, who asked not to be identified because of her fear of immigration authorities, said that returning to Mexico, as Wilson and other sponsors of Proposition 187 are suggesting, is not an option. Both she and her daughters, ages 8 and 3, identify as Americans and would feel lost in Mexico.

For the moment, she said she trusts the promises of people at the clinic that she is in no immediate danger of being reported to immigration authorities. “You have to trust somebody to tell the truth,” she said. “If they tell me to come back, I will come back because my daughters need health care.”

But she said if Proposition 187 is enforced, that will change and she will be forced to try to take care of herself. Six months pregnant, she said she has had to go to an emergency room once because of premature contractions. “What am I supposed to do?” she asked. “I think maybe I have my baby at my house. But what if my baby dies?”

The fear expressed by the woman was resonating throughout the Los Angeles area, health care workers said Friday.

At Queen of Angeles-Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital, prenatal clinic workers said 26 women did not turn up the day after the election for scheduled appointments. On Thursday, 15 women failed to show up. By Friday, most of the patients were coming in, though clinic workers said they were full of fear.

The clinic usually sees 60 to 90 women a day, about 90% of whom are Latino. Although the clinic services a predominantly Latino clientele, the hospital reported that alarm had also spread to Korean and Armenian immigrants in the Hollywood area.

“They were afraid to come out because they thought we would report them to the Immigration and Naturalization Service,” said Ana Posey, director of the clinic. “One lady said she was afraid to come out of her house because she saw a gray van in the neighborhood that looked like an immigration van. We had to send a taxi for her.”

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The taxi was just one means used to try to coax fearful families into clinics. The hospital also was sending out mail, making phone calls to patients’ homes and using Spanish-language radio and television stations to make announcements.

“I tell them, ‘Come in for prenatal care, you have nothing to fear,’ ” Posey said.

Dr. Carol Jennings, who works at the South Central Family Health Center near Downtown Los Angeles, said some patients, about 90% of whom are Latino, have called saying they are afraid to come in.

“They ask if we are asking for documents,” she said. “Morale has been really low. The staff and the patients are feeling bad because of how strongly 187 passed. It’s like a slap in the face.”

Like many clinics, the health center relies on payments from the state for a significant part of its operating budget. That means the facility, which provides care to about 4,000 low-income clients, could be forced to close if it cannot make up for the lost money through federal grants or private contributions.

One woman has told Sue W. Scott, the clinic’s director, that she would stop bringing her son in for his treatments for lead poisoning, treatments which if stopped could lead to long-term brain damage and limited physical development. Although the boy is a legal citizen, the mother is not and she said she could not risk deportation.

“I was devastated when I heard that,” Scott said. “I am feeling an incredible amount of anger.”