Growing Pains Remain

Orange County has prided itself on being a good place to raise children, a prototypic suburb devoid of inner-city ills. In many ways that is true, but the county also does include gangs, drugs and violence. Childhood still is a time fraught with perils as well as pleasures.

A coalition of county agencies that deal with children has just released its fifth annual report on the condition of those under 18. The assessment generally is favorable, but there are areas needing improvement.

The report should be a valuable tool for policymakers. It provides numbers to support its assertions, offering directional signs to areas needing more attention and, often, more money.

The report opens with the welcome news that, for a number of measurements of the status of children, “definite improvement” can be seen in the last five years. In part that’s due to an improved economy and increases in state funding for programs affecting children.

Infant mortality and sexually transmitted diseases among adolescents have declined. High school dropout rates and average class size are down. So are gang-related homicides.

But there are problems.

The report says that slightly more than 1,000 teenagers received treatment for substance abuse in 1997-98. But more than 2,000 are estimated to need that help.

It is unfortunate that many youngsters do not receive treatment until they are arrested, often for crimes committed to raise money to buy drugs. Although arrests of teenagers for violent crimes have been dropping in recent years, arrests for drug offenses, including felonies, have increased.

The report includes a “special section” detailing the interconnections among abuse of children, later substance abuse and crime.

A federal Justice Department report said researchers had concluded that “youth with a history of childhood maltreatment are more likely to use drugs” than those who were not mistreated. It put the risk of using drugs at about one-third greater for those who were abused.

Among areas in which the status of children can be said to have been improved, one is an increase in the percentage of women who are seen by doctors soon after they become pregnant.

In 1992, nearly one-quarter of the births in Orange County were to women who had not seen a doctor in the first three months of their pregnancy. By 1997, the percentage dropped to just over 16%, a welcome decline. The goal for next year is to have 90% of all women receive what is called “early prenatal care,” meaning medical attention in the first trimester. While that may be overly ambitious, it is worth aiming for.

Early attention can monitor problems experienced by a pregnant woman and her fetus and also can provide information on proper nutrition and maintenance of good health during pregnancy. Full-term babies with a good birth weight have a better chance at being born healthy and staying that way.

Those most at risk for having underweight babies are women who are not long out of childhood themselves: teenagers.

Children born to teen mothers are about one-third more likely to be of low birth weight. They have a 50% higher infant mortality rate than do children born to women over 20.

The report says that “Contrary to popular belief, in California, only 5% of mothers on welfare are teenagers” and that most of those are 18 or 19 years old.

Still, many women who first give birth while in their teens have ended up on welfare and have been likely to stay there for an extended period. As the welfare reforms of recent years take full effect and impose limits on the length of time people can receive assistance, child care will be an important component. Mothers trying to get off the dole and hold down jobs will require affordable day care for their children.

Of the children born in Orange County in 1997, 8.5% were to mothers 19 or under. Most were 18 or 19. It is troubling for those that young to become mothers themselves.

The agencies that deal with teens in the county, such as Health Care, Social Services and those in criminal justice, have done a good job in coordinating the annual report on children. It’s up to the Board of Supervisors and others with power over the purse strings to heed the report’s lessons and allocate resources where they are most needed.