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156
Under 1
week.
Over 1 week
and under
1 month.
Over 1
month and
under 3
months.
Over 3
months and
under 6
months.
Over 6
months and
under 9
months.
Over 9
months and
under 12
months.
Over 12
months.
45
108
153
184
99
78
42
364 children came to the depot with recommendations
from medical practitioners, and 346 were more or less seriously
ill when they began to be fed on the milk. The total number
of deaths was 75, and the death-rate 105.7 per 1,000.
Fourteen deaths occurred amongst children who had taken
the milk for less than one week, the children being already
most seriously ill when they began to be fed from the
depot. The dep6t children must not be regarded as a normal
infant population. They form a population of hand-fed babies,
nearly 50 per cent. of whom are brought to the dep6t on
account of ill-health.
It is sometimes made a reproach against milk depots that
they discourage breast-feeding, and it is important that a milk
depot should be so conducted as to avoid the danger that the
milk may be used as a substitute for mother's milk by mothers
who are well able to suckle their babies, but who, for some
reason or other, refuse to do so. Under the present arrangements
no child is admitted to the Battersea depot unless the
mother can satisfy the Medical Officer of Health, by the production
of a written recommendation of a medical practitioner,
or otherwise, that it is impossible or inadvisable for her to
suckle her infant. If she is able to feed the baby at the breast
partially, but not wholly, she is encouraged to do so, and
special arrangements are made for the supply of a proper
quantity of the milk in such cases.