Growing up in Brooklyn: The early history of the premature child.

Factors Associated with Impairment of the Early Development of Prematures

“…Often several persons had been responsible at different times for the infant's daily care, only 60 per cent having been cared for by the mother continuously. The social backgrounds of the subjects are discussed in more detail elsewhere (Wortis, Bardach, Cutler, Rue, & Freedman, 1963;Wortis, Heimer, Braine, Redlo, & Rue, 1963).…”

The Strategic Deployment of the Child Psychiatrist in Preventive Psychiatry*†

“…Studies on children in public foster care (Eisenberg, 1961;Maas and Engler, 1959) suggest the alarming possibility that these programmes, owing to inadequacies which stem from meagre budgets, anachronistic concepts, and lack of community support, may in fact be adding to this reservoir of psychopathology rather than diminishing it. I have already called attention to the likelihood that under-privileged children are a group at risk for neuropsychiatric difficulty, both at organic and psychogenic levels (Pasamanick et al, 1956;Wortis et al, 1961). With some 270,000 children in foster care (Maas and Engler, 1959) and 2,250,000 supported by Aid to Dependent Children programmes in marginal families (Wiltse, 1960), we confront a population of 2| million children who face major mental hazards consequent upon deprivation.…”

The contribution of social environment to the development of premature children.

“…The subjects were drawn from a sam ple studied in the course of an investi gation of the development of premature infants in relation to certain complica tions of the neonatal period. The selec tion of the sample and the objectives of the study have been described; several previous reports have been made on these subjects.2, a, 4,6, 7, 19,20,21 The subjects were ( 1 ) premature, single-birth Negro infants (weighing up to 2100 grams at birth) who were ad-mitted to the Kings County Hospital Premature Nursery from October, 1956, to June, 1959, and (2) a small number of Negro term infants born in the same place. Kings County is a municipal hos pital which serves the medically indigent in a densely populated area with a very high prematurity rate.12 Premature chil dren born to white and Puerto Rican mothers also were followed.…”