LOVE IS THE BEST MEDICINE CRACK BABIES THRIVE UNDER WOMAN'S CARE, PATIENCE

When Pat Smith's foster daughter asks her how she knew to take her home
from the hospital, her mother says it was all in the feet.

"I said, `When I took your blanket off, you had my grandmother's feet. They
were fat little feet you couldn't put shoes on.' My grandmother worked in
the fields in Hawaii, and her feet were very hard and calloused."

She later learned that many babies exposed to crack are born with dry skin,
but this one's tough little feet made her seem the reincarnation of her
grandmother proof enough that she was meant to take her home.

Ten years later, that little girl is thriving. She's a model, dancer and
budding scientist. Her 3-year-old sister has also joined the family, proving
to the doctors who had little hope for her survival that love is indeed the
best therapy.

Nina and Bella were among at least 75 babies born every year at San
Francisco General Hospital to mothers who test positive for cocaine. The
babies face myriad health problems, from asthma to brain damage. And as
they grow older, they are prone to hyperactivity, depression, anxiety and
impulsive behavior.

Smith, 48, was a single mother of two teenage daughters when a social
worker called her to the hospital. She found a sign saying "Baby Girl Smith"
hanging above Nina's crib.

"Smith is a common name, but it meant a lot to me. I very much felt a
connection," she says. She later learned "Smith" was the name they gave all
babies whose fathers weren't known.

They warned her that the 9-day-old girl was sensitive to contact and
refusing to eat. But Smith picked her up, turned her to the wall, and the
baby ate a trick she learned as a foster mother for three other
crack-exposed infants.

Nina was cranky, stiffening at the slightest touch or noise. She slept no
more than 15 minutes at a time.

"I was a zombie," Smith recalls.

At her most discouraged, Smith would remember how a young mother in the
neighborhood once threw her baby in a fit of frustration.

"All I could do was think, `I'm glad it's me and not someone who will throw
you across the room,' " she says at their cramped apartment in the Western
Addition, a working-class neighborhood.

Nina, bright and inquisitive, was a toddler when she started wondering where
her birth mother was.

"I know why you couldn't carry me and carry my seed because you have a bad
back," she eventually told Smith. "So they used my biological as a
vehicle." (This 10-year-old has quite a precocious way with words.)

When Nina was 3, a family friend came over with a Macy's ad saying the
model looked just like her.

She soon appeared in her first runway show. At 4, she starred in a music
video for Aaron Neville. "She calls me her godfather," Neville says.

Nina still models. But her goal is to become a singer.

"It's not the money it's just knowing I accomplished something," she says.

Despite earlier problems with hand-eye coordination, she is a gifted athlete
aggressive, confident, a leader. She seems like a typical overachiever, but
she still suffers from asthma and attention deficit disorder, and shies away
from physical affection. When her medication wears off, she gets impatient
and easily frustrated.

"You don't see it. If they had a limb missing you'd see it," Smith says.

When Smith brought 1-year-old Bella home, Nina learned they were half-
sisters. Nina said: "You mean the person who gave birth to me and left me in
the hospital is having more children?" Smith recalls.

"I said, `God had a plan, and God sent you to me and sent your sister to
me.' "

Exposed to both HIV and crack, Bella suffered two strokes soon after birth
that left her with cerebral palsy.

Today, Bella is a giggly, talkative toddler who will chortle a Spice Girls
song from start to finish and race gleefully up and down the hallway. She
regularly rides horses as therapy.

So far, her body is fighting off HIV, which can lead to AIDS.

"I think love is the major key for transforming these children. They
responded to the love pretty quickly," says family friend Cindy Herron of
the singing trio En Vogue.

Caring for a drug-exposed infant can be daunting for foster parents, says
Sylvia Villarreal, a physician at San Francisco General who has watched
dozens of drug-exposed infants grow to adolescence since 1986.

"In-utero exposure to alcohol, cigarettes, cocaine and heroin causes a lot
of neurological damage. These kids have trouble sensing their environment,"
she says.

They tend to be slower cognitively than other children and need constant
medical attention and therapy physical and psychological. And a steady,
loving home has no doubt played a big part in helping Nina and Bella
overcome their early setbacks, Villarreal says.

"There's always the question of nature and nurture with all these kids," she
says. "I think what Pat embodies is the whole package deal: the soul and
the tangible environment. She feeds them right and makes sure they're in an
environment that makes them feel safe and protected."

Over the years, Smith has been a devoted, affectionate foster mother to
other crack-exposed children, including a 10-year-old with more profound
learning disabilities than Nina and Bella who now lives with the family.
The girl came to her at age 2, too late for the early nurturing that Smith
says helped Nina and Bella thrive.

Smith, who is adopting Nina and already is Bella's legal mother, says the
decision to care for these children was simple: "I've always been the block
mom."

She grew up around the corner, the eldest of three and the neighborhood's
big sister. Articulate, dedicated, persistent and tough, Smith is firm about
misbehavior but generous with her affection. She expects her children to
excel, and they do.

"She's incredible," says Herron, who as a girl spent many an afternoon in
Smith's care. "She's just pouring so much love out. She's such an
inspiration to me. I look at her and think, `Do I have what it takes to do
that?' "

The costs for Smith, who quit her job as a theater manager because of a
back injury, add up. She says the help she gets from the city is barely
enough to get by. Most of the activities she considers necessary the dance
and art classes, swimming lessons and after-school programs are not
covered by social services.

But Smith says the girls' giggles and wisecracks are enough to dismiss the
sleepless nights and the hours spent shuttling them around.

"It's like being a carpenter who works and works and works, and somewhere
down the line you have this beautiful piece of art if it's handled
properly."