CHECKUP: ANGELIC CRUSADERS SWOOP DOWN IN WELL-BABY BILLBOARD CAMPAIGN.

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a ... baby.

Billboards featuring four flying babies - one of them blond-haired, blue-eyed, 15-month-old Charlotte Reed of West Hills - started going up all over Los Angeles County last week as part of the county Department of Health Services' Family Health Programs' new ``SuperBabies'' campaign.

County Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke and John Schunhoff, director of the county health department, are scheduled to unveil the latest push to decrease the rate of low birthweight babies and infant mortality in Los Angeles at a press conference this morning.

``The infant mortality rate has continued to decline in L.A. County over the last decade because of campaigns of this nature,'' said Dr. Irwin Silberman, the county's director of family health programs.

``We tried to come up with a theme this time that would get the attention of particularly the younger women who may be in their first pregnancies and not familiar with the system, but it also applies to all women,'' Silberman said. ``We hope it works.''

The billboards include a toll-free phone number - [phone] - where expectant women who need help getting prenatal care will be referred to a health clinic in their area.

Smog alert: Air pollution may trigger one out of 50 heart attacks, according to a study conducted at London's St. George's Hospital Medical School.

Measuring daily pollutant levels between 1987 and 1994 revealed that elevated levels of nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide and black smoke were linked to an increased rate of heart attacks, Dr. Jan Polniecki reported in the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

Carbon monoxide appears to be particularly dangerous because it reduces oxygen levels in the blood, thereby putting an extra strain on the heart during physical activity, he said.

Wedded stress: No matter how long couples have been married and how happy they are, a good fight can still stir up dangerous levels of stress hormones that could affect their health, Ohio State University researchers have found.

A study of 31 couples, who were married for an average of 42 years, found that hostile arguments weakened certain parts of their immune systems, said Janice Kiecolt-Glaser. Lowering immune defenses could increase the risk of infections and even cancer, she said.

Even though 87 percent of the couples said they were happily married, rousing arguments still affected their immune systems, she reported in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine.

``You might expect that arguments would have less impact on older couples because they've gone through these disagreements many times before and have learned to deal with them,'' she said. ``But that's not the case.''

CAPTION(S):

Photo

Photo: The ``SuperBabies'' campaign is designed to the grab attention of young women who might not be seeing a doctor during their pregnancies.