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Each case visited was recorded on a form showing particulars as follows—
Ward Reference No
REPORT ON THE CASE OF—
Name
Living at Born Registeieii Sex
Head of Family, Name of. Condensed Milk, Brand of? Whole? Separated?
„ „ Occupation of. Feeding bottle, type of?
Children in Family, No. of. Weaning, age at?
Rooms occupied; No. and position of. Doctor or midwife; Attended by?
„ condition of. Mother goes out to work as—
Bedding, condition of. How many days in week?
Feeding, method of— How long per day?
Suckled? Child, how cared for during day?
Milk (fresh whole), how much daily? Infantile deaths in family?
Remarks:— Visit, date of first-
Condition of child at birth? Age at—
Any illnesses? Re-visits—
If child dies—
Cause of death.
Date of death.
Alive at the end of first year?
I have pleasure in submitting an account of the Health Visitor's work for the nine
months, April to December, during which period 1,624 mothers were interviewed at home; 1,420
in North Kensington and 204 in South Kensington, and 502 were re-visited, making a total of
2,126 visits.* In addition to these visits to the homes of the poor, Miss Gauntlett, at my request,
and by permission of the medical superintendent, has for some time past paid a weekly visit
to mothers in the maternity ward at the Workhouse Infirmary, and has thus had numerous
opportunities for giving simple instruction regarding the care and feeding of infants, and for
finding out the destination of the mothers with a view to subsequent visitation, should circumstances
permit.
Of the mothers visited, 245 were confessedly engaged in work which took them away from
home on several days in each week: 84 of them as charwomen, etc., and 165 as laundresses; the
babies meantime being left in the charge of relatives, lodgers, neighbours (often aged and decrepid),
or young children, not a few of them more or less incompetent for the duty. Many
infants are taken from home for this purpose, and in the case of laundry employees are fetched
away in the evening, often at late hours and in all weathers: hence many an illness—bronchitis,
pneumonia, etc., the most common causes of infantile deaths.
"A distressing element of the work" (the Health Visitor reports)" is the poverty which
during the lying-in period reduces many a mother to a state of destitution, rendering it impossible
for her properly to nourish her infant in the natural way .... I think I must have seen quite
50 mothers who, I have every reason to believe, were in a state of dire need, with their babies
of a few days old lying beside them."†
* During the first quarter of the year the lady sanitary inspectors visited babies to the number of 491: 413 in North
Kensington and 78 in South Kensington : 126 re-visits were paid—108 in North Kensington and 18 in South Kensington. In
all, 2,115 babies were visited. The births registered during the year numbered 3,458.
† In an earlier report, the Health Visitor, commenting on the connection between destitution and infantile mortality,
referred to " the malnutrition of the nursing mother as a principal cause of the malnutrition of the infant. Thus it happens
that when the mothers get up and about, the little milk they had disappears, or becomes almost valueless as food for their
offspring, Unable to provide cow's milk, or other good substitute, the infant is fed with bread as a supplementary article of
diet, and sometimes as the sole article, malnutrition, disease often, and sometimes death, being the result. Appeals to the
relieving officer for out-relief in such cases, unless the district medical officer is in attendance, result in the offer of the ' House,'
of which the mothers of families are unwilling to avail themselves. Illustrative cases of the kind could be given–but, of
course, I have to depend on the statements of the sufferers which I have no means of verifying. There is, however, no question
of the extreme want from which the mothers I have in my mind suffered; and with the ' reduction of infantile mortality' as my
point of view, I find it hard to be able to do nothing to relieve their distress."
Commenting on this report I observed—" Here is a noble field for benevolence, which many ladies in the Royal Borough
would be only too glad to exercise towards their destitute sisters in their time of trial, were it possible to bring rich and poor
together—by some system providing for the distribution of relief, if only the want could be made known, and judicious
almoners found."