European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - September 11, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse                                A 41/2-month-old fetus floats serenely in its mothers womb doctors Are powerless to explain Many pregnancies gone  Jan by Scott los Angeles times a Young woman barely out of her teens kneels before a grave in a cemetery in Culver City near los Angeles. Carved into the Headstone is a picture of Minnie mouse. The dates of birth and death stand like bookends to a too slim volume a life that lasted just 43 Days. The baby was born with no eyes a spare Finger and a bad heart. An unforeseeable genetic aberration the doctors said. They gave her a year to live but she Sank into a coma at six weeks leaving her teen age parents to decide whether their child should live or die. They dressed the body in a doll sized baptismal dress. They placed it in a styrofoam coffin wrapped in Pink Satin and White lace. She was buried on a Broad Green Lawn shaded by twisted junipers in what her Mother Calls the cemetery s a baby  now the Young woman Mirian Soba brings Flowers to her daughter s grave. She scans the rows upon rows of narrowly spaced headstones. How did All these babies die she wonders each time she visits. How could this have happened to them there is a room on the ground floor of a downtown los Angeles office building where the county health department stores its death certificates. Into innumerable Manila folders clerks stuff the perfunctory paperwork on infants who died before reaching age 1. Gonzalez Sarkissian Abusalem Phung Dhaliwal Wojciechowski Jones their names Span the vastness of los Angeles county. They Are the children of poli Celb your health officers dentists actors bookkeepers prostitutes and High school seniors. The causes of their deaths Range from negligence to Blind bad Luck a quirks of birth that doctors Are powerless to explain. They died of infectious diseases sudden infant death syndrome birth defects accidents pregnancies gone inexplicably awry. Others died for reasons neither inexplicable nor unavoidable. Their deaths and sometimes their births could have been prevented. Instead they arrived unplanned unwanted addicted infected. For Many of them death was the Price of being born too soon. But All Are part of a disturbing trend the infant death rate in los Angeles county is creeping upward especially among Blacks and latinos. Each Day on the average five babies die. Amid the extraordinary wealth of Southern California los Angeles county s rate is Little better than the National average. The United states which once had one of the lowest infant death rates in the world has been outstripped recently by much of Europe and Asia. Since the 1950s, the United states rank has fallen from sixth to 20th Japan a has risen from 17th to first. In Many ways infant mortality is a barometer of a nations health and health care system. It illuminates a society s successes and failures. In its patterns lie the patterns of Broad social inequities a in Opportunity education income and Quality of life. The problem has not gone unnoticed in the United states. There have been commissions task forces Federal reports on the subject. Recommendations have surfaced and resurfaced. But the will to take them seriously is missing. One reason May be that infant death is invisible to Many people. There is something unspeakable in a child a dying so we Are spared the details. Families find themselves alone with a tragedy others choose not to confront. The experience goes unshared. As a result infant deaths become Mere statistics in the calculation of medical successes and Public policy failures. Flesh less and bloodless they rattle the Public mind but they fail to penetrate the heart. The human toll is quietly overlooked. Like Many infant deaths the death of Sheryl Shapiro s son is a mystery. He was born unexpectedly in a san Fernando Valley Hospital at just 24 weeks gestation. He lived according to the death certificate just 24 minutes. He died of extreme prematurity. Shapiro is a Well educated Middle class woman. She has worked in the fashion Industry and is married to a dentist. They live in a Cream coloured House atop a Hill in a gated Community. She was 34 when she became pregnant last october. She had no shortage of medical care or insurance to cover it. Her pregnancy nevertheless was not easy. There was some Early bleeding questions about the Placenta a possible murmur in her heart. She had four ultrasounds in three months. Then in her 24th week she found herself suddenly in the Hospital in pre term labor. Prematurity a being born before 37 weeks gestation a accounts for a Large percentage of All infant deaths. It is also the cause of innumerable health problems the painful consequences of being born with immature lungs continued on Page 14 tuesday september 11, 1990 the stars and stripes a a a Page 13