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Show Worse than undeveloped countries U.S. infant mortality rate is dismal Consumer Information by Dennis Hinkamp Considering our status as a world power and leader in technology, our record for infant mortality is dismal. Not only are we near the bottom of the list in comparison to other industrialized countries, we fare far worse than many developing develop-ing countries. The last column addressed the nutritional issues related to the U.S. high infant mortality rate. This week's column looks at some of the social issues that relate to the problem. prob-lem. Japan seems to be a world leader in many areas and you might expect the Scandinavian countries with socialized medicine would have better infant mortality than the U.S. The countries that might surprise you with their low infant mortality rates are Cuba and Costa Rica, according ac-cording to Dr. Ann Austin, early childhood specialist in the Utah State University College of Family Life. She has visited both these countries and studied their early childhood programs. people who are financially stable find it hard to go to a doctor, imagine imag-ine how intimidating it is for those people living in poverty,' Austin said. Cuba also does very well with child care, she said. Although most people in the U.S. would be uncomfortable uncom-fortable with their level of invasion of privacy, Cuba does very well at caring for its infants and children. Similar to Costa Rica, Austin said they divide the country into health care districts with the smallest areas being "block captains." cap-tains." These block captains are responsible for birth control information infor-mation and getting pregnant women to the clinics when they need care. At the day care level, Cuban doctors doc-tors spend much more time actually in day care centers than do U.S. doctors. They monitor the child's health and development and list it on a charts for ail parents to see. Again, U.S. parents might find this too much of an invasion of privacy, but in Cuba it is an acceptable part of their national and community spirit, she said. "The Costa Ricans believe we have taken individuality to a ridiculous extreme. This strong sense of individuality doesn't bring communities together and makes it more difficult to deliver nyial care,' Austin said. J All this leads to the issue of national health care or socialized medicine in the U.S. It is unlikely that we will completely switch over to this system. However, the rising cost of health care and its effect on infant mortality may force us to reevaluate our present system. In Utah, Baby Your Baby (1-800-826-9662) acts as a statewide hot line for prenatal care information and works in conjunction with programs pro-grams such as WIC (Women, Infants In-fants and Children) to get food aH prenatal and well baby visits those in need. Austin says Costa Rica trains paraprofessionals to work with pregnant women and young children. They are trained in infant and prenatal health and are allowed to administer immunization Shots. She says probably the most important im-portant aspect of the Costa Rican system is that these paraprofes-sional paraprofes-sional health care workers go to the homes of the mothers on a regular basis. "We are hampered by the requirement re-quirement that people must go out and get help on their own which may include a lot of intimidating paperwork and bureaucracy. Even |