Conspicuous Consumption
I hate that no matter how much money you spend on your kids, it seems like someone else is always spending more. Last weekend, for a formal dance at my daughter’s middle school, other people’s children were pulling up in limousines. And now, after 2 years of litigation, French businessman Francois-Henri Pinault has finally agreed to pay supermodel and ex-girlfriend Linda Evangelista child support to help out with her estimated $46,000 a month in childcare expenses. People! Don’t you know that kind of thing just makes it harder to explain to my kids why they have to walk through their soles before our next trip to Payless Shoe rack?
Of course when it comes to expense even supermodels and billionaires have nothing on premature babies. The Institute Of Medicine estimated that preterm births cost the US $26 billion in 2006 alone. That money is not wasted, however; the US boasts truly amazing survival rates even among among extremely low-birth-weight premies. You might ask, how did we get so good at saving premies? A new report from the March Of Dimes Foundation and the World Health Organization provides the answer: practice. Lots and lots of practice.
Among the 184 countries included in the survey, the US ranks 131st in rate of preterm births per capita , earning us pride of place squarely between the Congo and Nigeria. That works out to 12.0 preterm babies per 100 live births, or around half a million premies a year. Unlike poorer countries whose premature birth rates stem largely from infections like HIV, chronic diseases, and smoking, we get a lot of preterm births from fertility drugs and diseases of excess consumption like obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure. We also perform lots of cesarean deliveries, some of which experts feel are scheduled too early. Of course Americans can’t attribute all our preterm births to affluence. Lack of health insurance and prenatal care also contribute substantially. And if we can just get the Affordable Care Act repealed, then Nigeria had better look out; 132nd here we come!
Some problems are simpler to solve than reducing the number of preterm births. Take the explosion in numbers of children with allergies and asthma, for example. A new study in the Journal Of Allergy And Clinical Immunology suggests parents could cut the risks of their children developing these diseases by up to 40% with one little intervention: buy a cow. Okay, I may be oversimplifying here. According to the study families may have to move to the sorts of small farms with multiple animal and plant species common in the Alps and increasingly rare in the US. That said, simply visiting such a farm cut rates of asthma by 10% compared to kids who never even set foot there. For those who can’t afford a cow, just being around hay seemed helpful. According to my neighborhood covenant we’re not allowed hooved livestock, but I’m not giving up completely. From now on I’m dressing my kids exclusively in gingham and playing nothing but Clay Aiken CDs.
Finally, from the American Journal of Preventive Medicine comes a report that California fifth graders who complied with the state’s mandatory physical education law were 29% more fit than those who didn’t. Apparently only half of schools comply with the requirement, making the school system an epidemiologist’s dream and demonstrating that in California the word “mandatory” means something completely different. Personally, I’m excited to see such dramatic results from the mere 20 minutes per day of exercise West Coast school kids are “required” to have. I’m more grateful than ever for the school system where I grew up in Tennessee, where we were given the opportunity to play dodgeball, climb monkey bars, and use sledgehammers to break up boulders. Come to think of it, next time my kids complain their friends parents spend more on them, I’ll calmly inform them that, valuing their health, I’m saving up for a cow, three sledgehammers, and a really big rock.