View report page

34
many who start well need keeping up to the mark; and
many more are glad of a word of advice or
ment from time to time, and would benefit by more
visits than are at present possible. The mothers
quently ask if there is any arrangement in this Borough
for the supply of milk for infants, or for having them
weighed. They know that in some places such things
are or have been done and they seem to expect
body to take an interest in their babies. They are now
always invited to bring them to the Town Hall any
morning from 9 till 10.30, and quite a number do come.
It is hoped that their numbers will increase, for in this
way one could keep in touch with them with the least
expenditure of time.
The visitation of infants continues to disclose a large
amount of poverty and distress. It is really marvellous
that many of the mothers manage as well as they do on
their small and uncertain means. It is wonderful, too,
that so many of the babies when born are such fine
children; but the result of the mothers' hard lives is to
be found in the constantly repeated tale of inability to
nurse their children long, and the fact that so many of
the babies waste after birth. Many of them are little,
if any, bigger when three months old than they
were at two and three weeks.
There may be another reason for this in the fact that
so many women, when they find they are to become
mothers again, try to prevent it. This fact also,
doubtedly, has something to do with the large number
of still-births which occur, and the number of infants who
die within a few days of birth. My information on this