One Out of Every 10 Babies Die During First Year, 1918

“Reduce Number of Little Graves,” from the Roanoke Rapids Herald, published on May 31, 1918

A large number of communities in North Carolina are taking an active interest in the Baby Saving Campaign, and the State Board of Health is daily called upon for literature, exhibits, lectures, lantern slides and advice with regards to the methods of best arousing local interest. North Carolina is asked to reduce its infant deaths this year by more than 5,000 as the state’s portion of the 100,000 babies which it is hoped with be saved in the United States during the year.

There are born each year in this country, now, over 2,500,000 babies and statistics show that one out of every ten of these babies die during their first year of life, between 250,000 and 300,000 each year. It is fully realized by those who are well-informed on questions relating to public health that at least 50 percent of these die from preventable diseases. It is to reduce this appalling harvest of the Grim Reaper among the little ones that the Baby Savings Campaign has been inaugurated by the Children’s Bureau of the United States Department of Labor.

Three thousand live and smiling babies in North Carolina this year, or that many little graves? Briefly, that is what the campaign in this State means.