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12
4. Sheets for transmitting notices of births of non-residents
to the London County Council.
6. Circular letters sent to parents for omitting to notify
births in their families.
Neighbour Nurses.—It has been already pointed out that a
large number of Finsbury mothers are attended in their confinements
by students and pay nothing for such treatment. These
mothers engage neighbours self-styled "nurses" to help them
during the lying-in. Such "nurses" are the modern representatives
of Mrs. Gamp. They abound in the Finsbury mean streets. They
are engaged without any very clear notion of the duties they may
be asked to perform, though some regard their presence at the
mother's churching as the most important service they can render.
Many are decrepit, shambling, leaden footed, deaf, halting, old
cronies, dirty and ignorant. Some receive the Old Age Pension.
They are inclined to be "independent." In the words of a
mother, "It's hard to get them to come to you, if you are too
particular -I am so thankful of her that I couldn't order her
about. I am afraid to tell her to wash herself for fear she would
leave me and not come back to me again."
One such nurse washed the mother once only during her
lying-in.
They neglect the mothers and their babies. Some admit they
do not understand babies.
They wash the mother occasionally on request, and then only
partly. They do not wash their hands before attending to the
mother.
They give the mother gruel for the first 8 days of her
confinement, alleging that "it is healing to the insides"—they
advise that the mother should, during this period, drink gin,
because " it keeps the insides sweet."
Some neighbour-nurses wash the mother's diapers, others merely
throw them under the bed and leave them there until their
offensive smell is noticed.