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12
Deaths of Illegitimate Children.—Of the 330
infants who died before attaining the age of one year 46
or 14 per cent. were illegitimate, the mortality among
them being in the proportion of 227 deaths per 1,000
births against 80 per 1,000 among children born in
wedlock.
Prevention of Infant Mortality—Notification
of Births.—3,021 notification of living and 73 of stillborn
children were received under the Notification of
Births Act, 83 per cent. of the births registered in
Fulham being notified. Of these 76 per cent. were
notified by midwives, 20 per cent. by medical practitioners
and 4 per cent. by relatives. Weekly returns
are now obtained from the Registrars of the births
which have been registered but not notified, and these
children are visited by the Health Visitors and the
attention of those responsible for the failure to notify is
drawn to their omission.
With the appointment in April, 1916, of two Health
Visitors infant visitation has been more energetically
undertaken and 4,448 visits were paid to 1,755 infants
during the year by the Council's Health Visitors, and
their work has been effectively supplemented by the
activities of the Fulham School for Mothers at its three
Infant Welfare Centres, 90 and 92, Greyhound Road,
160, Wandsworth Bridge Road and Melmoth Hall,
Eustace Road.
To the consultations held by the three doctors
on the staff of the School for Mothers, 790
babies were brought and their attendances totalled
8,350, while 4,907 visits were paid to the homes of
the babies by the Superintendent or her assistant. In
addition to these 164 children over two years of age
were seen by the doctors on 388 occasions, and of these 12
were operated upon at the Treatment Centre, 18, Bagley's
Lane for enlarged tonsils and adenoids and 16 for
dental defects. The number of older children attending