1, p. 21). Conditions of poverty cause pregnant women to not have access to the resources that they need in order to deliver healthy babies. As noted by A. Cockburn in The Nation (1990), "babies die or are underweight when they are born into desperate poverty, into families cursed with poor shelter and inadequate food" (p. 479). The fact that infant mortality is connected to poverty is substantiated by evidence which shows it to be higher in those regions of the United States where poor minorities are clustered. The National Commission to Prevent Infant Mortality has dubbed these regions "disaster areas" (Cowley, 1991, p. 18). Both urban and rural areas are subject to high infant death rates. For example, the urban ghettoes of Detroit, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C., all have high infant mortality rates; furthermore, "parts of the rural South fare even worse" (Cowley, 1991, p. 18). There is little evidence to support the hope that poverty will be eradicated in the United States in the near future. At this time, the number of poor women gi
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