London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972
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Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
Croydon 1947
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Croydon]
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The following table is intended to show the deaths of babies
who at one time or another during their first year attended a Clinic, as compared with deaths among those who never attended. If a baby only attended once it is included in the Clinic returns:—
| Deaths | Attended M. & C. W. centre | Attended at Birth by | Full Time Baby | Births during the same period | Deaths in Institutions | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yes | No | Doctor | Midwife | Doctor & Midwife | Not known, etc. | Yes | No | Not known, etc. | Mayday Hospital | Regd. Maternity Homes | St. Mary's Hospital | Other Institutions | ||
| 136 | 37 | 99 | 18 | 58 | 53 | 7 | 96 | 34 | 6 | 5100 | 76 | 11 | 10 | 14 |
4,255 babies under one year of age attended the Clinics for
the first time during 1947. Within the same period 5,100 babies
were born and 194 died; 58 of these latter are not included in the
above table, as information concerning them was not obtainable.
Although the clinic attendance figures and the births and deaths
figures do not cover precisely the same periods, the attendances
of new cases at the clinics do not fluctuate so greatly as to cause
serious error. Of the 136 babies tabulated who died, 37 had
attended a clinic in Croydon and 99 had not attended, .i.e., 27 per
cent. of the deaths were in clinic babies and 73 per cent. in nonclinic
babies. Of the 5,100 babies born, approximately 4,243
attended on calculation based on past attendances. The infantile
mortality, estimated on this basis, is only 9 per 1,000 births for
the clinic babies, and 115 per 1,000 births for non-clinic babies.