View report page

Association Centre, 616, Old Kent Road. Expectant mothers are
also examined by the Medical Officers at the Cambridge House
and the Kempshead Hall Voluntary Centres at the weekly Infant
Clinic Sessions. Women attend the ante-natal clinics at these
Centres either of their own accord or are referred to them by
doctors and midwives practising in the Borough, or by the Health
Visitors. During the year 228 women made a total of 703 attendances
at these ante-natal clinics. Ante-natal supervision of women
to be confined in their own homes is also given by midwives of the
General Lying-in Hospital Post-Certificate School, 77, Southampton
Street, and ante-natal clinics are attached to the St. Giles' and
Dulwich Hospitals for patients to be confined in these hospitals.
Early in the present year the Council decided, subject to the
approval of the Ministry of Health, to adopt, with the exception
of recommendation (c), the proposals outlined in the following
report on Ante-natal Services which was submitted to the Maternity
and Child Welfare Committee for consideration during the year
under review.
To the Chairman and Members of the Maternity and Child Welfare Committee.
Ladies and Gentlemen, April, 1934.
Ante-Natal Services.
Your Committee will remember that the L.C.C. in a communication dated
August 10th, 1933, indicated that the maternity work at St. Giles' Hospital was
increasing to such an extent that certain structural alterations were being made
at the Hospital which would have the effect of increasing the maternity accommodation available.
Similar structural alterations for the same purpose are at present in progress
at the Dulwich Hospital.
The additional accommodation at St. Giles' Hospital will be available at
the end of this month, and I am accordingly of opinion that it is an appropriate
time to bring to your notice the various ante-natal services in Camberwell for the
purpose of considering whether any possible improvement of these services could
be effected by the utilisation of these revised facilities by arrangement with that
Authority.
Ante-Natal Clinics are established at the L.C.C., St. Giles' and Dulwich
Hospitals for patients entering these Institutions for their confinement: the
General Lying-in Hospital Post-Certificate Midwifery School, Southampton
Street, for patients confined in their own homes by the midwives of this School;
at the Camberwell Municipal Centre, 140, Camberwell Road, and at the Bird-in-
Bush Voluntary Association Centre, 616, Old Kent Road. Ante-natal advice is
also given to expectant mothers by the Clinic Medical Officers at the Cambridge
House and Kempshead Hall Centres at the ordinary infant consultation sessions.
Further, the Council has appointed an Obstetric Specialist whose services
are available for any medical practitioner in cases of difficulty arising during
pregnancy, parturition or during the puerperium period.
There occurred in Camberwell last year 3,247 births. Information is
available in respect of 3,108 of these births that 1,740 occurred in L.C.C. Hospitals
and Nursing Homes in this Borough, and Maternity and General Hospital and
Nursing Homes in various parts of London; private medical practitioners were
in attendance at 300 births, and practising midwives 1,068.
Patients booked for admission to hospitals for their confinement receive
systematic ante-natal supervision, and there is no reason to doubt that similar
supervision is given to patients who engage their own medical attendant for the
confinement. There is no means of ascertaining the extent of pre-confinement