Brits Will Pay Moms-to-Be to Eat for Two

Starting 2009, all expecting moms in the UK will receive a lump sum of $240, intended to be spent on a healthy diet of fruits and vegetables to help prevent low-birth-weight complications in newborn children. The "pregnancy grants" are part of Britain's new health secretary's plan to close the gap between rich and poor, the Guardian reports.
 

The program will cost  $140 to $160 million a year, but with nearly one in 12 English babies born underweight, it could save the health industry millions, its proponents calculate. The downside, of course, is that  the measure includes no way of accounting for how the roughly 630,000 women choose to spend the money—a point that will no doubt be raised by detractors when it's unveiled later this week. (More public health stories.)