Saving Infants

Posted by on June 20, 2006

Cincinnati's remarkably successful program for improving infant mortaility rates is featured in today's Wall Street Journal as part of its continuing series on poverty and the search for solutions.

The program is called Every Child Succeeds, and it sends social workers and nurses to visit new moms in their homes to encourage them to eat better, stop smoking and breast feed their babies.

John Pepper, former chair and CEO of Cincinnati-based Proctor and Gamble, is the program's founder. He saw other countries -- China and India, in particular -- focusing on child development and thought the U.S. could do better. He convinced the local United Way to develop a plan. The program operates along business lines, relying on reams of data to tell program officials whether they are meeting their targets.

Annual cost per family is $2500.