The wealth gap is growing, but poor women see one improvement: healthier newborns
BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — As a kid who grew up in violence-racked public housing here, Wanda Verret had no idea what to do when she got pregnant at age 14. She didn’t go to the doctor until her sixth month of pregnancy, smoked cigarettes and dropped out of school. “I was a baby having a baby,” she said.
Now 34, Verret is a little over four months pregnant with her fourth child. Living in a county with one of the nation’s sharpest income divides, she faces all the pressures that so many in this poor city confront: losing a car, no job, a cramped apartment. But she receives plenty of advice on how to have a healthy baby. She’s not smoking. And on a recent morning, she met with a nutritionist, picking up vouchers to buy fruit and vegetables, and went for a sonogram at a clinic. “I definitely do things differently,” she said.
Something extraordinary is happening to poor pregnant women such as Verret: They’re giving birth to healthier babies. While other economic and health disparities have widened, giving way to huge national debates about inequality, pregnant women at the lowest rung of the nation’s economic ladder are bucking that trend. They have narrowed the gap with wealthier women in the health of their babies.
While experts agree that government policy has been critical to boosting the health of poor newborns, the improvements aren’t because of a single policy or administration. Rather, they reflect improved access to care, as well as a complex array of other factors, some not easily within the government’s grasp to change, from pollution to nutrition to violence at home.
full: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/the-wealth-gap-is-growing-but-poor-women-see-one-improvement-healthier-newborns/2014/07/20/cc672a88-0c4f-11e4-b8e5-d0de80767fc2_story.html
