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14
The Medical Officer of Health for Glasgow, in his Report for the
year 1903, makes special reference to the infantile mortality in that
city, and he draws attention to the fact that one-third of these deaths
occurred during the first four weeks immediately following birth, at
an age therefore which suggests the operation of ante-natal causes
tending to unfit the child for independent existence. One-half of the
total deaths occurred during the first three months of life, and tables
and figures are given to show that the death rate during the early
months of infant life depends largely on immaturity (including
Premature Birth), Congenital Malformation, Faulty Development,
Atrophy and Debility. I need hardly say that the above causes of
death, which account for fully 30 per cent. of the deaths of infants, are
not to be prevented by the improved sanitation of the home. The
weak health of the parent before marriage is responsible in no small
measure for this mortality, and this weak health is the result of too
early marriage and the occupation of the mother in work (generally
performed under insanitary conditions in order to enable her to
supplement her husband's scanty earnings), which is often carried
on until pregnancy is far advanced and within a day or two after
confinement. When the baby comes she is too weak or too much
occupied with work to suckle it, and often too selfish. The majority
of these mothers have no knowledge of how to feed the child
artificially, and their ignorance and neglect is mainly responsible for
our high preventable infantile mortality. It is not only in the actual
number of deaths that one sees the evil of this state of things reflected.
One has to think of the far greater number of infants who escape
death, but grow up with constitutions permanently damaged.
Wherever Vital Statistics have been collected, they have served to
illustrate the same truth, that children fed naturally from the breast
have a prospect in life far in excess of those who are fed artificially.
The circumstance was very noteworthy during the Siege of Paris and
the Lancashire Cotton Famine, that although there was an increase in
the adult mortality, it was accompanied by a diminution in infantile
mortality owing to the circumstance that mothers were obliged to
suckle their infants.