View report page

14
On account of this Act the great majority of the visits are made much
earlier than was possible prior to the passing of the Act. As doctors and
midwives object to visits being made until after they have ceased attendance on
the patient, the first visits are now made when the children are about a
fortnight old.

During the same period 1,436 births were registered.
During the year, Miss Orange made 796 primary visits respecting newlyborn
children. She found that in 711 cases the births had been notified and in
85 eases not notified. Of the 85 cases not notified, 48 were attended by doctors,
4 by midwives, 23 by students and 1 by a neighbour; in 5 cases wrong addresses
were registered, and in 4 cases the person in attendance on the mother at the
time of the birth could not be ascertained.
I wrote in most cases requesting th e reasons for non-notification. From the
doctors I had replies giving reasonable grounds for their not having done so. In
the cases of midwives and students of hospitals, the reasons generally given were
that the students, or midwives, had only been recently appointed, and were not
aware of the Act, or that the notification had accidently been omitted.
In all cases where the births had not been notified, Miss Orange informed
the mothers that it was the duty of the father, and of any person in attendance on
the mother at the time of, or within six hours after the birth, to notify the same.
The mothers always replied that their husbands were ignorant of the Act.
(3) Modified Milk for Infants.
In my Annual Report for 1906 I gave a detailed report respecting this
matter and the arrangements made with the Express Dairy Company, who have
various depots in and near the Borough to supply modified milk for infants of the
working classes at the reduced rate of 4d. per day on production of a certificate
from me. During the year 51 new certificates were issued of which 8 were not
used for various reasons. Including 13 children who were taking the milk at