Nationally Enhancing the Wellbeing of Babies Through Outreach and Research Now Act

Floor Speech

Mr. COHEN. I want to thank Mr. Pallone for the time, and I want to thank Mr. Pallone, Mr. Andrews, and Chairman Waxman for their help in getting this particular proposal to the floor; and the minority side as well, Mr. Whitfield, my friend, Mr. Shimkus, and everyone who has worked on this.

Mr. Speaker, this is a particularly important bill to me, and it's an important bill to my district. September is Infant Mortality Awareness Month, and it's appropriate that this month this bill will be brought up for consideration, the NEWBORN Act. ``NEWBORN'' is an acronym. Everything in Washington seems to be an acronym, and this acronym, ``NEWBORN,'' stands for ``Nationally Enhancing the Wellbeing of Babies through Outreach and Research Now.''

It is so important that we give children an opportunity to live and mothers and fathers an opportunity to see their children born and have a chance. My parents lost a child at about 4 months of age in 1946. They never got over it. There are so many people who have lost children, and it is something that stays with you forever.

In my particular city of Memphis--while we talked about the United States' rate, we know it is too high no matter what it is and how you keep statistics--the city of Memphis has one of the highest infant mortality rates in the Nation. It is said to be second by the CDC among the 60 largest urban areas in the year 2002. In one particular ZIP code in my district, 38108, in the year 2007--it's in north Memphis, a predominately low-income African American neighborhood. I say predominately; it's an entirely low-income African American neighborhood--had an infant mortality rate of 31 deaths per 1,000 live births. That is almost five times the Nation's 2007 rate of seven deaths per 1,000 live births. And that ranks 38108 as worse than the developing nations of Iran, Indonesia, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Syria, and Vietnam in infant mortality for that year.

It's an issue that can strike people of any race, but it is divided largely along racial lines, and there's a great racial disparity. The Office of Minority Health at the CDC has found that African Americans have 2.4 times the infant mortality rate than whites, that African Americans are four times as likely to die as infants due to complications related to low birthweight when compared to white infants. The CDC study found that African American mothers were 2.5 times more likely than white mothers to begin prenatal care in their third trimester or not receive prenatal care at all. That's where a lot of research and outreach can be done, particularly the outreach. That is why the NEWBORN bill is so needed, and that is why our office decided to make this our top priority.

My chief of staff, Marilyn Dilihay; my district director, Randy Wade; and our whole team met in Memphis. Brittany Johnson, who is my legislative director in the area of health care, and my legislative director, Reisha Phills, the whole office worked on the issue and we brought it as a bill. But we also had it included in the health care bill that passed this House. And it was featured in the Speaker's bullet points about what it could possibly do for infant mortality. This would be the largest outreach program the Federal Government has ever engaged in. It's an authorization to find answers for the problem of infant mortality.

Of course, because of the situation of the politics in the Senate and because we had to go to reconciliation, there wasn't a conference committee, and this part of the health care bill wasn't included because the Senate didn't have it, and reconciliation didn't allow consideration of proposals like this that didn't add to or decrease from the budget. This was an authorization. So it didn't make it through the final phase because of what happened in Massachusetts, and that hurt us in what could be an important step forward for mothers and children.

We hope that the bill will pass here today and that the Senate will pick it up. We hope Senator Mikulski or Senator Dodd or somebody will help us with it, or Senator Harkin, and see that it gets through the Senate and the authorization is approved.

It will authorize the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to award 5-year-long grants to 15 municipalities or States to create infant mortality pilot programs. The legislation sets forth guidelines on what practices the pilot programs may employ in their quest to lower the infant mortality rate of the area they serve, and those include outreach to at-risk mothers, increased access to educational clinic services for pregnant women or potential mothers and families.

The language suggests each program provide infant care counseling, postpartum care, additional care for at-risk mothers, a rural outreach program, and a public education program.

All of these can save money in the long run in health care because some of the most expensive treatment rendered is for premature babies, and care in these particular ages of life can be very expensive. And if we can have better prenatal care and less problems, not only is it the right thing to do in every way possible, but it also saves money.

It is my hope that those entities who apply for this funding will do so in conjunction with existing local, private, and not-for-profit groups that have already involved themselves in the fight against infant mortality. And there are several in Memphis that have done that. Our Governor, Phil Bredesen, and our city mayor and county mayor, A C Wharton, have headed up programs in our community, and our county mayor, Mark Luttrell, is continuing them.

The cultivation of partnerships between local leaders is essential in order to ensure the problem is addressed in as efficient a manner as possible.

I introduced the NEWBORN Act because of the number of devastating instances of infant mortality in Memphis, but I hope its passage and eventual enactment will help the incalculable number of people across the country who are possibly at risk to lose a child or grandchild in the years to come.

Again, I thank Mr. Pallone and the other Members, particularly Mr. Waxman, for their help in getting this bill to the floor, and I hope that we will have the help in the Senate that the mothers, children, and grandchildren in this Nation deserve.

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