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(c) Health of the Mothers—Eight per cent. of the
mothers of these dead children suffered from very bad health;
28 per cent. more from indifferent health, and 63 per cent. had
good health. These figures are almost identical with those of
397 dead infants recorded in 1906. On the whole the conditions
as to home and mothers' occupation are much the same in both
dead and living infants.
(d) Method of Feeding.—But when we come to inquire
into feeding, there is a very different result. Of the mothers of
the living children, 80 per cent, breast-fed their infants. Of
the mothers of the dead, infants only 44 per cent. breast-fed their
children. That is a marked and decisive point of difference. It
should not be forgotten, however, that the majority of the investigations
into deaths took place, as a rule, at a later period in the
12 months than similar investigations into births. As many as 20
per cent. of the dead infants were fed only on cows' milk, and
were not suckled at all. On the whole, therefore, it may be said
that the broad difference between the treatment which the living
infants and the dead infants have received in Finsbury is a
difference of feeding. But we must go a step further back than
that to explain the deaths from prematurity, marasmus and
atrophy. Most of these deaths would appear to depend not
mainly upon feeding, for the infants only lived a few days, but
upon the physical conditions of the mother. From whichever
point of view we judge the matter, whether it be as to bad feeding,
leading to diarrhœal diseases, or as to exposure, leading to
lung diseases, or as to mere physical unfitness to live, leading
to premature death, the problem of infant mortality is mainly a
question of motherhood.
CONCLUSIONS.—The conclusions to which all these facts
lead are indisputable. Broadly, there are three main diseases
which cause 70 per cent. of the deaths of infants in Finsbury,
and they are due to three main evils connected with infancy.
1. Immaturity,due to low standard of physical motherhood;
2. Epidemic Diarrhoea, due to improper feeding;
3. Lung Disease, due to mismanagement and exposure.