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Retired Doctor Still Working Hard To Give Babies A Healthy Start

BERKELEY (KPIX 5) -- Dr. Vicki Alexander, or "Dr. Vicki" to most people, loves babies.

The retired OB/GYN has dedicated her career to making sure babies born to African American mothers have a healthy start in life. That was true at UCSF Medical School in the late 1960s, true in 1978 when she started the Coalition to Fight Infant Mortality in Oakland, true at Harlem Hospital in the 1980s, and it didn't change when she returned to Berkeley ten years ago.

"A city the size of Berkeley had a disparity of 4 black babies compared to 1 white baby with what's called low birth weight," Alexander explained. "It was like, 'Oh my goodness!  And I'm in Berkeley? Oh no! No, we can't have that!'"

Alexander's Black Infant Health Program grew from her coalition at Highland Hospital all those years ago, helping women with medical care and social issues.

Retired nurse Margaret Thomas has worked with Alexander for 20 years.

"I had a lot of experience with mothers and babies," Thomas said. "But the perspective that Vicki had was something that was just new and exciting that I didn't even know existed."

Being retired really only means that Alexander has given up a paycheck. She's as busy as ever, launching a new health program that dovetails with Black Infant Health.

"In our new organization, Healthy Black Families, we can serve women all along the corridor," Alexander said. "We are a non-profit organization and we can serve people across all the borders. So now we got the woman, the pregnant woman, the post-partum woman, her kids. Now her kids got to go to school. We got to make sure that school district is doing what it got to do. And it goes on and on. So I see nothing but beautiful growth!"

So for helping ensure black women and their babies and families get the best chance at a healthy life and promising future, this week's Jefferson Award in the Bay Area goes to Dr. Vicki Alexander.

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