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Show March of Dimes Volunteers Help Parents of Birth Defects Children Picture a child crippled by a severe birth defect. A tragedy? Unmistakably. But how severe are the effects on the parents of this child? What is the extent of their shock and suffering? Dr. Hans Zellweger, a well-known well-known professor of pediatrics and genetics at the State University Uni-versity of Iowa College of Medicine and medical director of the March of Dimes-supported Birth Defects Center there, reports that in his experience ex-perience 80 per cent of the parents of defective babies harbor unwarranted feelings of guilt. He believes that they, like their afflicted child, need help. For that reason he is about to organise group therapy "classes" "clas-ses" in which troubled parents can talk among themselves and with medical experts to discuss the problems created by this family tragedy. Dr. Zellweger points out that more than a quarter of a million mil-lion babies are born every year in the United States with birth defects among them blindness, blind-ness, deafness, missing extremities, extrem-ities, imperfect spines and nervous nerv-ous systems, and many other crippling disorders. Feelings of guilt and humiliation in the parents of these children are commonplace and have been for centuries. He explains that unfortunately this sense of shame persists even in the "enlightened" "en-lightened" 20th century, although al-though the individual pediatrician pediatri-cian today does all he or she can to combat it. Help Is Expanding Help for those grief- and guilt-stricken parents is being provided by March of Dimes chapters on a growing scale in several sections of the country. "Actually, most of these parents aren't in need of medical medi-cal treatment, but they are in need of some psychiatric help and the opportunity to talk over their problems with others similarly afflicted," according to Dr. Virginia ApRar, director of . the division of congenita! mol formations of The National ' nrlnt ion-March of Dimes. a rMs - 4 jilt1- . l&iuJi 1 'J.L MARCH OF DIMES voluntitrt aid in tasing th psychological and othor problems confronting paronrt of children with birth defects. Abovt, at Mankato, Minn., parents and members of March of Dimes chapter listen to lecture on birth defects by Dr. Warren Warwick, pediatrician, of University of Minnesota Medical School. "Also, they are in need of a healtl.v dose of truth about birth defects," she adds. "That truth is that so far as medical science knows, by far the ma- i'ority of parents of a defective oby have no reason to reproach re-proach themselves, or to point the finger of suspicion at the other partner in marriage." March of Dimes chapters in five Minnesota counties now hold meetings of parents each month to discuss means of ridding rid-ding themselves of their unjustified un-justified feelings of self-reproach. Usually they are also addressed by a pediatrician and are informed about the progress of March of Dimes research grants in birth defects de-fects at leading university-allihatcd university-allihatcd medical centers and laboratories across the nation. At Houston, Tex., the Harris County Chapter has established a Spina Bifida Educational Association As-sociation which meets monthly in a seminar room at Texas Children's Hosnital. Fifteen to 20 s.ts of ; aunts attend the evening lecture, exchange "traumatic" experiences, and discuss such practical problems as getting their handicapped small children into the elementary ele-mentary schools. Volunteers Well-informed Up to 75 parents attend the monthly gatherings of the Child Development Center Parents Group, at Children's Hospital, San Francisco. Half of the necessary financial support sup-port comes from the funds of the March of Dimes-financed Birth Defects Center at the hospital. All the sponsoring chapters find enthusiastic and well-informed volunteers at these meetings on whom to call for help during the March of Dimes campaign each Jenuary when funds are raised nationally. nation-ally. Other March of Dimes chapters chap-ters around the country are (.!:inn'r.i; similar projects to banish r.cciless f ehii."s of !;uiit amoiif, parents of chikiren vv : tti defects. |