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Show Healthy Baby Week Slated in Grand County Calling on all citizens of Grand County to observe "Healthy Baby Week" by learning more about preventing prevent-ing birth defects, Mrs. Mars Pope observed that good health practices start long before the baby is born. Mrs. Pope is chairman of the Grand County March of , Dimes organization; a group whose mission is to prevent crippling defects among new babies. "Healthy Baby Week" will be observed nationally May 11-17. "Prospective parents in this area should know that J premature birth can bring additional health risk to the baby, . and good medical care for the mother before the baby is bom gives better assurance as-surance of a full-term pregnancy," preg-nancy," said Mrs. Pope. She added that parents-to-be should know their blood types to guard against the possibility of having an "Rh baby." A vaccine has been developed de-veloped that can prevent Rh sensitivity in mothers not already al-ready sensitized a problem prob-lem that can make their newborn babies dangerously ill. Mrs. Pope also mentioned rubella, a disease often called call-ed "German measles" or "three-day measles," which can cause blindness, deafness, deaf-ness, or other defects when the mother-to-be contracts the disease early - in her pregnancy. Mrs. Pope said a rubella vaccine should become available av-ailable for use among the general public soon. She re-' minded that rubella must not be confused with "red measles," a two-week disease di-sease for which most Utah children are already immunized. immu-nized. She stressed that the more youngsters who are immunized, im-munized, the better are the chances of preventing a rubella ru-bella epidemic that could leave scores of Utah babies crippled from birth. "We're learning a lot about how to prevent these problems in children, and anyone with questions can get free literature from the March of Dimes," said Mrs. Pope. |