Good evening and welcome ia and chelsea with a good time to be born how Public Health gave children a future talking with Andrew Solomon. Before we start want to say a huge thanks to the team for making this happen and all of you for showing up we cannot host events without the community of authors and readers we are grateful for your support and to make this conversation so now just some housekeeping and the webinar tonight the speakers cannot see or hear you but you can see account of fellow attendees. A couple functions that you can find at the bottom of the window one is labor chat you can post comments and thoughts in the chat thats a great way to show your appreciation for the author have a specific question please post the and the q a module we will pull questions only from the q a to be answered in the later part of the program. And tonight. [chanting] book a good time to be born and to find actual shopping between noon and 7 00 p. M. Not everyday of the week and you can purchase this book and many others onsite and then with a quick pick up at the store for shipping anywhere the us. And with that ongoing existence and the feature book is a great way to show support so now to introduce her speakers Andrew Solomon is a writer and lecture on politics and psychology professor of a Clinical Psychology at Columbia CenterMedical Center former president of panamerican made an audio series is an awardwinning film far from the tree the International Book critic circle award from the National Book award winner is an activist of lgbt rights of education and the arts and the founder of the Solomon Research Fellowship at Yale University and with the task force the metropolitan museum of art and many others. Andrew will be speaking with our featured author the professor of journalism and pediatrics the National Medical director and the checkup for the New York Times is a fight against Child Mortality into her own experiences as a medical student to groundbreaking women doctors like Josephine Baker and scientist to have new approaches and ideas green vaccinations to families. She will be talking with andrew please take it away. Our parents and greatgrandparents at all before expected the children to die it was a known and predictable risk that we expect children not to die could be the luckiest parents in history with the wave over the past 75 years because we are the first parents ever been able to enter into parenthood in the hopeful expectation all of our children will survive and 500 born into an area where we could expect to grow up driving down Child Mortality in no way a single project can be seen with that accomplishment the least for pediatricians and parents the entire world has relearned with shocking great sorrow how they are to the microorganisms will be taken some comfort to know that our children are less severely affected by covid19 also babies and children have been particularly Vulnerable Group and those that lose the fear of contagion and infection and depth. Children used to die regularly one that would die from diarrhea. Who found the cows milk they had started to drink or three rules and four yearolds even a year old staying of scarlet fever of pneumonia and measles or Skin Infections that turned into sepsis or influenza turning into pneumonia. As recently as the early 20th century almost every family of every ethnic group in every country, was touched in some way by the death of children. It was on the edge of the family landscape and in the memorial portraits on the wall. With stories and dramas and paintings to be done consistently they also figured a party in literature childhood and a family life. Eleven babies but i cannot have them. I am married 11 years last july and about to become a mother again one. Nine years and 162 apparently died some years ago she did not say how then had two babies and i gave birth to a Beautiful Boy who lived three days that he had a leaking heart a few months later she was pregnant again the sun lived to be one yearold then she woke up and found him dead now pregnant again talk about the terrible long labor she would endure and what would become of the baby. I try to live a good honest life and babies of my idols im afraid something will happen to this one. Writing this to the United States government established in 1912 establishing prenatal care in 1913 the first to distribute free of charge to the constituents that are available for purchase and by 1929 the government. Half the babies born in the United States. You can think how i feel i a crying night and day. Living in the middle ages living in 1917 when my grandmother lived and in new york city ten years before my own parents were born and at that time nearly one quarter of the children were not alive those that were in the early decades where hopes for medical solutions to protect the next baby even with the desire to join is a larger project i only wish i could take up the work with a woman who lost her child somewhere for women who struggled and others who were educated and privileged. There was no segment of society nor have there ever been. And then to involve europe and america was extremely high with the third of foreign children with 40 percent or more died are they came out of childhood. The first decade of the 20th century more than 100 babies from their first birthdays in the mortality rate was even higher with the mortality rate was five. Eight deaths and the majority and with the immaturity. A good time to be born one of the greatest human achievements for science and Public Health and medicine to transport the emotional landscape all through history many babies died at birth this was true through the middle ages and the renaissance to colonial america and victorian england if you way around any tables lost a friend at a young age fact of life for almost every family rich or poor john d work of color founded the rockefeller when his grandson died of scarlet fever mortality was more than just the disadvantage population. Thank you for that lovely reading so let me begin the conversation to say that and then to engage it takes on what you just heard and many other stories many of those who lost children across the entire spectrum bit by bit and over time and its a so a sobering study as a parent myself i was struck over and over when it must of been like to be more enhancements to your children and gives off more to helicopter parenting but what is your sense of people bonded psychologically and emotionally . Do you think that people were better protected or the quality of despair that which you write about in the book. The quality was the same day were less isolated in a strange way. That is the experience everyone has had. New jersey they love their children just as much and you can even see they went over and over if i had not done that if you hadnt done that birthday did that and company are was struck me and those that have lost children in recent years but many of those parents talk about how isolated they feel that you cannot bring up casually new conversation now we have three children but only to a living that can be easily discussed and then to acknowledge the child. And in that context about some of the losses were that quality of accusation particularly Eugene Oneills mother and the story you tell and his older brother. I was actually looking for examples and literature to say measles is a disease every single child got because of the vaccine because it is incredibly infectious and it is a miserable disease with high papers but most recover but it hits every single child with relatively rare complications for all the children in the world even so, look for these references most children recover that i was actually watching a strong autobiography play about addiction and whether the mother is addicted to opiates and at the center of the play there is the tragedy of a baby with measles a mother was on the road with her actor husband she leaves with her own mother the sixyearold son and the baby in the sexual gets measles the older child gets measles he goes into the room with the baby and then the baby dies the mother never forgives herself and she never forgives the son who went into the room she things he did it on purpose because he was jealous of the baby. That common childhood disease basically comes into this family and devastates the family. And its all true Eugene Oneills mother that he is the reconciliation baby born later from the boy who dies. I think all of us know their words enormous medical process to make an extraordinary difference in the lives of children but Public Health is what is well known how is information not only getting vaccines with other measures were helpful to children and with that process . That i can do Public Health with those were with names and sanitation and then you start by going back 19th century to clean up their water that is tremendously important. One of the things happening in the 19th century is the importance of microbes and bacteria and doing experiments and developing a technique. All of that is tremendous importance that we have to get to the individual household. Parents have to understand the dangers of reading will spoil if i know water is pure. One of the reasons thats important especially in the cities around the turnofthecentury there is understanding in the summer is coloradans into like diarrhea and thousands of babies every month in the summer. And there is not a full understanding but also brought it is is a whole range of white folks and then the fact the babies are honorable to dehydration ever had a student loan a sick baby the pediatrician said the infection will do harm its the dehydration so by that solution and keep putting the fluids back in. Yes. Absolutely. Talk about and what was a relationship between those who develop vaccines to control address these problems and the only sterlings of the Eugenics Movement and that it was on where the children dying in such large numbers . Is a really interesting question because the beginning of the 20th century people start counting dead babies. If you go back much further growing infant mortality Stillborn Babies are a common fact of life nobody is even really counting at the beginning of the 20th century publishing a book called infant mortality in which he basically says we should not be losing all these children we are losing a regimented being but he said theres nothing we can do about that he thinks one out of every ten could be done it. One of the things thats interesting is the people who are trying to bring down infant mortality especially newborn is the act with you save all of the week babies will happen . Are they really able to live . And the founder of american pediatrics was a weak and sickly baby herself. And repeatedly references the fact just because of weak and sick baby doesnt predict who that person will grow up to be. But there are other people and there is overlap in the Eugenics Movement that they explain very seriously at the same time as you are saving babies you have to discover certain people from marrying or reproducing because they are very worried with people epilepsy for example, some of them were who was on their list its not everybody involved to bring down infant mortality but its a question that needs addressed. Will we actually weaken our population . On the other hand its clear to everybody that even and the people at the top of the social aramid are losing babies frequently. Talk a little bit about abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln spoke about their baby and the extraordinary way that they responded and the yards. And then to have four sons and those one and before there was a way house by the time they get there there were two relatively small boys. It is always a good Human Interest story and the two boys are in the white house they get typhoid and probably because washington and his soldiers and the camps and the sanitation system are overwhelmed. There is so much in the potomac and drinking the water in the white house and one of them die dies. One of the reasons i like talking about president ial children it is a shorthand way to say even with the best medical attention. But mary talk to lincoln and had to discuss to be unbalanced or inconsolable how you say about a woman in that era what she cannot accept it as has been determined although both are deeply affected, there is something about the way she warns she doesnt cherish she doesnt want to save people she doesnt want to ever go into the room and then eventually of course she had a very tragic life but then she has four sons the other white house bully dies from but she also outlived all four of her sons. She got one daughter that outlived her and died as an adult. But this kind the tragic parental history which even when you are powerful or privileged has a scheme returning on recurring tragedies when parents all over the country are losing sons going into the army. So lets move forward in a way. Obviously were in the midst of a pandemic and a sense of mortality with some measure for children in a way that hasnt in many generations in a shocking and overwhelming fashion. But yet we find ourselves in a country according to many people one quarter if vaccine were to develop that so tell us about the politics and how they grew up and it was a great miracle and it was a great miracle think that pediatricians understand this better and in some ways it is true and to tell the best job of understanding. Because i do believe in themselves and i think that one of the things i was looking at and writing the book is the ways that and then how quickly and from the memory. And those that are more frightened of the diseases and why therefore they are susceptible to owning about the vaccine and then it was all the way that no question but then if people understood that vaccines are the way to realize im putting something into my body there is a biological brilliance of vaccination sometimes is frightening because you turn on the system in your body and vaccines for children we think about diphtheria or polio or what this is when tetanus was around or pooping cough there is no question the terrors that my grandmother lived not that long ago my parents in new york city there was a polio epidemic every summer. They grew up with that form the social distancing keeping children away from other children because it was a terrifying virus that could kill you. And it is hard to remember if you have not lived that. I think it is very hard. One of the things that so distinguished is the portrait of the people and to talk about dying children and the work in many ways is about the lives of children that made the lives of children possible so with more upbeat piece of the conversation i will ask you to give a description of the life and activities. And really looked quite astonishingly masculine but tell us about what she was and then to a woman of her era what she could accomplish about being a woman. I have to say identify with some of these remarkable women and with the stories and Josephine Baker, she wrote a wonderful autobiography and you can just here in her voice so clearly as she describes to put these things happen and then she had the invalid sister. She needed a job and she went to the Medical College and practiced medicine and very determined and confident and smart fell in love with the idea of Public Health working for the department of health and how she was interested in working with schools and became interested in the question of preventing diseases when the children got diarrhea or diphtheria there was nothing you could do and i was looking for and example of the way she wrote about it and said that she realize the way to vent people to be sick was to prevent them from getting out illnesses who could teach parents how to provide to keep the milk safe more real the water how to breastfeed babies she wrote that back in improving that he does not necessarily kill babies and one of the first people to help get nurses into Public Schools because there was a strange and then these were very common things one themes and then she writes about how strange it was and then one City Department sending the Children Home with infections then you have the other doctors yelling because they are not in school one department sends the Children Home another City Department comes around to blame the parents and the answer to deal with the infection for parents how to handle it one of the things she wrote about mothers then they cried like mothers they would stay realistic about what was going on there is no point to try. And then we try to help people they are thrilled and excited the messages go on. And the babies live and they even start to do better in the poor neighborhoods this is for antibiotics or vaccines and hygiene and education but those where pure milk is made available it is very handson Public Health you can take care of your baby which goes back to the door and antibiotics. Do you think that message of empowerment ultimately cause the change to come about . Those that go back a long way like advocating for breastfeeding but also a great deal of fatalism and that most significantly has disappeared and we more and more believe not only will we survive but the children deserve to survive. What has that shift been like and what made you think it was achieved . One of the reasons wrote the book so were talking about my grandmother im talking about having her children in the 19 twenties so more than half a century later about with predictable routine and accessible. Yes i did. 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