Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 280, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 November 1918 — U. S. Birth Rate Falls in Year [ARTICLE]

U. S. Birth Rate Falls in Year

American Baines Begm lb Pay Price of War a, Undernourishment Increase,

Looking upon the suffering of Europe’s from disease, starvation, increased mortality and decreased we are wont to think our country has not yet begun to feel these secondary effects, writes a Now York correspondent. Figures compiled by Dr. S. Josephine Baker, chief of the division of child hygiene of the New York city department of health, are disillusioning. The foundation of our nation’s physical well being, the children, has already been endangered. Speaking of the importance of the children’s year movement now under way, Doctor Baker says: “We have been in the war a year. Our birth rate has gone down everywhere. Our mortality rate has gone up everywhere. Thousands fewer marriages have occurred this year than last year in New York dty. Hundreds fewer births have occurred this year than last year in tills dty and the same conditions are noted aH over the country. And, moreover, our baby death rate has been going upTMs-year, dfter having had a continuous dedine for many years, and it is going up all over the country. • : “The increase In undernourishment among our children is so considerable that it seems as though it should arouse the interest of every person in the United States. It Is a serious matter. It began almost with the beginning of the war. In 1914 this condition of undernourishment was found in 5 per cent of the school children of this city. In 1916 it was 6 per cent, in 1916 16 per cent and iff 1917 21 per cent, with 61 per cent additional of these children who are not absolutely well nourished. These figures, trite as they may seem, ordinary as they may seem as figures, are really referring to the flesh and blood children of this country. If you have been accustomed to going about among large bodies of children,’even in our rural communities, or In our cities, you cannot help but be struck-with the difference between the nourishment of these children today and three years ago. For three years we have been steadily on the downgrade in regard to the health of the children. In the United States we have been going through exactly the same experience s Europe and the reasons are exactly the same."