Although the majority of The Starting Gate explains the consequences of children born at a low birth weight and never explicitly categorizes this as a biological or social issue, the book offers solutions to combat this problem and suggest programs that would help eradicate LBW in certain communities. I found the suggestion of Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) and Medicaid especially interesting and problematic.
The programs to reduce the rate of LBW in impoverished communities by themselves are great resources. WIC provides food checks or food to eligible pregnant or postpartum women and Medicaid enables the poor to have affordable medical treatment. However, I doubt that these problems would make a great difference in the disproportionate rate of LBW in impoverished communities. Nutrition and prenatal care would change the future for some infants but the extent to which LBW could be prevented with these programs is limited.
First, nutrition only accounts for one of the various causes of LBW children. Several other factors such as stress, smoking, drug use, and maternal disease can cause an infant to be at risk. The fact that these are risks common in low income communities, there would still be a disproportionate amount of poor children suffering from LBW. The fact that a mother has to rely upon programs like Medicaid and WIC show that she cannot depend on her own income to survive which can place a heavy amount of stress on her and her child. Programs can only stabilize the lives of the poor, not increase their overall income or class, which I believe is the change families need to prevent LBW babies and other health risks.
Also, I believe that the solutions in this book underscore that LBW is caused and exacerbated by the environment and living in a poor neighborhood. The Starting Gate quotes, “the important point is that genes determine who may get sick within a class but environment factors determine the frequency of sickness” and I think that they forget this idea at the end of the book. If we look at the South Bronx a place where 38% of residents live below the poverty line and it is ranked as #10 for the highest poverty rate, many other issues occur in this city that don’t deal with nutrition or medicaid but simply where the poor are placed to live. There is an extremely high asthma rate among children because the city is located near expressways, waste-transfer stations, sewage treatment facilities
and truck traffic. Regardless of benefitting from WIC, a pregnant mother living in South Bronx, as opposed to a woman living in a affluent suburb away from smog, is inhaling harmful toxins which still may cause LBW and exacerbate the issues of LBW such as a compromised respiratory system.
It is a noble idea to think that more government aid may improve the health of those who are at risk to giving birth to LBW children but if things as simple as the air the poor breathe can be compromised, I feel that this is much more than a biological problem that can be solved with more affordable visits to the doctor. If your neighborhood is unsafe, you cant work, you’re stressed about money problems, and you cannot even breathe clean air because your are segregated based on your income to live in a certain community, you will indeed have biological side effects. The larger problem of solving how the impoverished live must be addressed first before offering them a program to treat a biological condition they may or may not even have.
This is very interesting! You made a great point, Simone.
ReplyDeleteAs you've mentioned in your post, reducing the incidence of low birth weight babies cannot be achieved by addressing only a single factor. While there are certainly biological and social components that influence an infant's likelihood to be born at a low birth weight, I found your argument about clean air to be very interesting and important. The impact that pollution has on health provides an example of how nature and nurture can play parallel roles. The social implications of living in a low income community, typically near cities where pollution is inevitable, serve as the "nurture" component that influences health, whereas the biological consequences of this pollution serve as the "nature" role. Reducing the toxicity of air in low income communities would provide healthier environments for pregnant women, though other factors such as drug use, stress, etc. would of course remain prevalent causes of LBW babies.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the important factors contributing to low birth weight is due to the environment. I believe government programs will not be enough to overcome environmental factors. While giving the mothers more access to prenatal care through Medicaid and access to good food is solving some of the problem, it does not cover many of the factors leading to LBW. It was noted that families with a higher income has less of a risk for giving birth to LBW babies. Even though TANF gives the pregnant women some income, I do not think it is sufficient. In the beginning of the book, it was mentioned "researchers have documented that even a mother who is not poor is at an increased risk for giving birth to a low-birth-weight baby if she lives in a neighborhood where most people are poor" (2). Even if the mother has a higher income, she still may be surrounded by stress and the toxins from living in that area so that the risk for a low birth weight baby has not diminished much. I believe that until the mothers are given a healthier environment to live, this problem of LBW will still be around, even with the aid from the government.
ReplyDeleteI agree and you make some interesting points.
ReplyDeleteAlso, it ignores to a large extent the question ‘does being poor make you sick or does being sick make you poor?’. If those who have a higher susceptibility or likelihood of certain conditions are those living in these environmentally less healthy conditions, it further exacerbates the risk of unfavorable health outcomes.