West Virginia: Babies in the Balance

In the poverty-racked mountains of McDowell County (pop. 35,233), the arrival of a baby is taken as a sign that life is getting better. The hope persists, although the county has one of West Virginia's highest rates of infant mortality: 13.5 per 1,000 births, one-third above the national average. "It's always been a problem," says Franki Patton, director of Tug River Clinic's maternal and infant health program. "But I think the community has gotten used to it. They don't want to lose their babies, but they see it as a part of life."

< Several years after the clinic opened in...

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