Needy lack inclusive health care

The Jan. 28 editorial about preventing special education made several good points that deserve further examination and amplification.

Special education has indeed come a long way from where it was when it began in the 1950s and ’60s. Since then we have learned a great deal more about prevention from the fields of neurobiology and developmental psychology that are teaching us about early brain development, especially in the first three years of life.

I was happy to read about Bath Superintendent William Shuttleworth’s recommendation for meeting the health care needs of all pregnant women who do not have health insurance. This needs to be done along with a total revamping of our nation’s health care system and its delivery.

The editorial says “too many children suffer from serious developmental delays because their mothers drank alcohol, smoked cigarettes or used drugs during pregnancy.” This is true. The developmental delays of the children are complex, as are the histories, beliefs and behaviors of their mothers – and their fathers. The adult use of substances that are harmful to the babies in utero will not be reduced, however, solely by health care unless we accept and support a very broad view of such care.

Too many of Maine’s young people are raised without a lot of hope in their lives. There is a high level of poverty, low expectations of being able to make a living as adults, a limited vision for seeing higher education as a possibility and a goal to become first-generation community college or college students. Why? Perhaps because of first hand experience with child abuse or living in explosive home environments. More young mothers – and fathers – have become parents with such life experiences behind them than we want to believe.

So, to have all of the uninsured young mothers’ health care needs met would be very valuable, but it needs to be an exceptional health care delivery system. It needs personnel from many backgrounds and with training and supervision in working effectively with a large population that has limited hope for positive, vigorous adult lives.

All that is currently happening in our state and national economy does not bode well for a future health care system that will be effective with a large segment of the population that the editorial identifies. I believe a health care system, broadly and generously conceived, is possible, but it will take a great deal to get us there.

Vision is called for in a rural state such as Maine, where too many of our families are at or below the poverty level, with all that implies. They live with little hope or expectation that these circumstances are going to change.

Jane Weil lives in Steuben and is a board member of the Maine Association for Infant Mental Health.