WASHINGTON -- Memphis took center stage in the national conversation on infant mortality today as both Shelby County Mayor A C Wharton and U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen kicked off National Infant Mortality Awareness Month at the National Press Club.

 

Sub-cabinet officials from the Obama administration joined minor celebrities in screening a documentary about Office of Minority Health outreach efforts filmed in Memphis this summer by Tonya Lewis Lee, director Spike Lee's wife. It's part of the "A Healthy Baby Begins with You" campaign.

The film opens at the Shelby County Cemetery where, at the time of the documentary, 402 babies who never made it to their first birthdays are buried.

"Each marker," Wharton says in the film, "represents grief."

The film shows college-age volunteers speaking to an assembly of 9th and 10th graders at Carver High School about infant mortality and improvements to preconception health. It follows Dr. Ramasubbareddy Dhanireddy of the Sheldon B. Korones Newborn Center as he tours the facility. Volunteers from LeMoyne-Owen College join volunteers from other colleges around the country canvassing Memphis neighborhoods.

Memphis ranks first among major cities in the U.S. for infant mortality in a state that ranks 6th highest. The U.S., which ranked 12th lowest in infant mortality in 1960, now ranks 29th. In 2007, Shelby County had an African-American infant mortality rate of 17.8 per 1,000 live births, three times that of white babies, at 5.8 per 1,000.

Cohen suggested that there is a "disconnect" between those who think the U.S. has the best medical care in the world and a places like the 38108 ZIP code with the highest infant mortality rate in the country.

In March, he introduced a House Resolution (No. 260) calling attention to the problem and said he also hopes that Memphis will be chosen as a pilot city on a bill encouraging infant mortality outreach efforts.

On a personal note, Cohen said his mother and father lost their first child at one month old, adding, "the loss of a child is something a woman never forgets and I think a family never forgets."

Wharton, abandoning his prepared remarks, asked his audience to consider what the National Transportation Safety Board would do if a school bus full of children were involved in a fatal crash, then pointed out that 28,000 children under age 1 die each year. He called it "unacceptable."

In Memphis, he said, there's an inscription at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital that reads "No Child Should Die in the Dawn of Life." Wharton said, "What better place than in Memphis, Tenn., in our great nation, to breathe life into those powerful words."

Other speakers addressed the role of peer mentors to college-age women and, in particular, to the role and importance of men and fathers in the lives of young children.

After the formal presentation, Wharton, who said he'd spend more time in the air today than in Washington, said the resources are now available to begin solving the problem.

"Memphis," he said, is now "in the crosshairs of everybody who really wants to start gunning for this target."