View report page

V. MATERNITY AND CHILD
WELFARE.
The following special report on the Maternity and Child
Welfare Scheme was submitted to the Council during the year:—
To the Chairman and Members of the Maternity and Child Welfare
Committee.
MADAM, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,
I beg to submit the following report:—
One of the earliest problems to which my predecessor directed
his attention after his appointment as Medical Officer of Health in
1901 was that of Infantile Mortality. While the birth rate had
fallen in the previous ten years from 37.7 to 34.2 per 1,000, there
had been no corresponding fall in the infantile mortality rate
which was 169 in 1901, compared with 165 in 1891. Various
explanations were offered for this high infantile mortality rate,
and attention was repeatedly drawn to the problem by the Medical
Officer of Health, who made many suggestions for its solution. I
find that in 1904, 1905, 1906 and 1907 he advocated the education
of mothers, the teaching of hygiene in schools, attention to the
milk supply of infants, the establishment of a municipal milk
depot, the reduction in the period allowed for the registration of
births, and the appointment of Health Visitors. An attempt was
first made in 1904 to disseminate knowledge amongst mothers by
the distribution of pamphlets, and, in 1907, the Notification of
Births Act —which was adopted in this Borough —solved one of
the difficulties, and provided much more speedily than previously,
information which was essential to the establishment of any
Maternity and Child Welfare Scheme.
At the end of 1908 one Health Visitor was appointed. As
the number of births at this time was over 4,000 per annum, it is
clear that one Health Visitor was insufficient, and in 1910 the
Medical Officer of Health recommended the appointment of an
additional Health Visitor. The second Health Visitor was