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Spending on children, any economist can prove, is a bargain. A nation can spend money either for better schools or for larger jails. It can feed babies or pay forever for the consequences of starving a child's brain when it is trying to grow. One dollar spent on prenatal care for pregnant women can save more than $3 on medical care during an infant's first year, and $10 down the line. A year of preschool costs an average $3,000 per child; a year in prison amounts to $16,500.
But somehow, neither wisdom nor decency, nor even economics, has prevailed with those who make policy in the state houses, the Congress or the White House. "We are hypocrites," charges Senator John D. ("Jay") Rockefeller IV, who is chairman of the National Commission on Children. "We say we love our children, yet they have become the poorest group in America." Nearly a quarter of all children under six live in households that are struggling below the official poverty line -- $12,675 a year for a family of four.
In some cases the abandonment of children begins before they are even born. America's infant mortality rate has leveled off at 9.7 deaths per 1,000 births, worse than 17 other developed countries. In the District of Columbia, the rate tops 23 per 1,000, worse than Jamaica or Costa Rica. Fully 250,000 babies are born seriously underweight each year. To keep these infants in intensive care costs about $3,000 a day, and they are two to three times more likely to be blind, deaf or mentally retarded. On the other hand, regular checkups and monitoring of a pregnant woman can cost as little as $500 and greatly increase the chances that she will give birth to a healthy baby.
Every bit as important as prenatal care is nutrition for the child, both before and after birth. "Of all the dumb ways of saving money, not feeding pregnant women and kids is the dumbest," says Dr. Jean Mayer, one of the world's leading experts on nutrition and president of Tufts University. During the first year of life, a child's brain grows to two-thirds its final size. If a baby is denied good, healthy food during this critical period, he will need intensive nutritional and developmental therapies to repair the damage. "Kids' brains can't wait for Dad to get a new job," says Dr. Deborah Frank, director of growth and development at Boston City Hospital, "or for Congress to come back from recess."
Congress understood the obvious benefits of promoting infant nutrition in the 1970s, when it launched the Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants and Children. WIC provides women with vouchers to buy infant formula, cheese, fruit juice, cereals, milk and other wholesome foods, besides offering nutrition classes and medical care. It costs about $30 a month to supply a mother with vouchers -- yet government funds are so tight that only 59% of women and infants who qualify for WIC receive the benefits. "A power breakfast for two businessmen is one woman's WIC package for a month," says Dr. Frank. "Why can't public-policy makers see the connection between bad infant nutrition, which is cheap and easy to fix, and developmental problems, which are expensive and often difficult to fix?"