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68
What the Borough Council is doing.
1. The Notification of Births Act has been adopted. By this
means early knowledge is obtained of all the births in the
Borough.
2. The Lady Sanitary Inspector supervises the work of the
three weighing centres, and investigates every infant death that
occurs in the district.
3. There are two Lady Health Visitors who visit all the births
in the slums, a large percentage of the births in other parts of
the Borough, and expectant mothers. The progress of the
mother and baby is supervised, suitable advice is given to the
mother, and a booklet of infant management is left with her, and
its purpose explained. An invitation is given to her to attend
the weighing centres and have her baby weighed regularly.
Definite instruction is given as to the best feeding, clothing and
washing of the child. Mothers who are ill are referred to their
own doctors, or tickets are gjven available at hospitals or dispensaries.
Special attention is paid to the abatement of certain
matters which may re-act adversely upon the progress of the
infant—phthisis, overcrowding, domestic dirt, house refuse
disposal, the condition of the gullies and the water closets.
4. Mothers who are poor are referred by the public health
staff to the various and philanthropic institutions, and occasionally
in urgent cases to the poor law authorities, who have on every
occasion proferred ready help.
Hundreds of such references are made each year to one or
other of the following 'The Relieving Officers; School Care
Committees; Almoners of various Hospitals; General and Special
Hospitals and Dispensaries; The Leysian Mission; Claremont
Hall Mission; The Charity Organisation Society; The Home of
Service, King Square; The Invalid Children's Aid Association;
The Churches and Chapels in the Borough; The National Society
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children; The Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Women and Children, 60, Haymarket;
The Society for the Repression of Inebriety; The Home Workers