Infant Mortality is an issue we
should be concerned about. Our author is a professor of Journalism and Pediatrics
at New York University, co-director of NYU Florence, and national director of
Reach out and read. She writes a daily column, The Checkout for the New
York Times. She has chosen to write this book on infant mortality and the struggle to bring down the occurrence
thorough proper methods brought about through struggle and learning.
It used to be accepted that each
family had a few deaths of young ones. For example, if the child had a case of
diarrhea the thought was to get the problem handled by dehydrating the kid. We
now know diarrhea causes loss of hydration and we should stabilize the
hydration level loss caused by the rapid release of moisture. It took some time
before the doctor’s understood what was happening.
Or the diseases the child got from
drinking milk which had been sitting around collecting bacteria. Until someone
discovered if you pasteurized the milk it got rid of the harmful elements and
was okay. Before that some mothers breast fed and alternated with the
unpasteurized milk product. Or the summer diarrhea because of the microbes in
the water supply, water which had been mixed with sewer water – this was before
proper sanitation practices came about.
There was a lot to learn and be
transmitted before we saw a decrease of infant mortality.
Klass only handles mortality in children
since she is trained in pediatrics. But that is enough to let us see we have
come a far way since the days of acceptance of mortality of at least one member
in the family unit, normally the infant, because of uncontrollable diseases of
that time.
Today we have vaccines to help us.
The subtitle is How Science and
Public Health Gave Children a Future. It is very professionally written and
researched. It has photos and drawings used as illustrations which are a great
addition.
I recommend this book. It will help
a person to understand the history of infant mortality, the steps taken up to
the present day 2020 and the pandemic we are in.
I would suggest even if you don’t
buy this book you should see if your local library has a copy and can get it for
you to read and return so another can benefit from reading it.
