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kept on a card index, setting forth the particulars of all notified
births visited, and systematic re-visiting is carried out by
the official and voluntary Health Visiting Staffs. Advice is
given as to the care and management of the infants, and special
efforts are directed towards the encouragement of breast-feeding
by the mothers of their babies. The mothers are also invited to
bring their infants to the various maternity centres and clinics,
and a very large proportion of the mothers readily avail themselves
of the opportunities afforded them of keeping their
infants under continuous supervision by the trained health
visitors, weights being periodically recorded, and in cases where
the progress of the infants is not satisfactory, they are seen
by medical officers in attendance at the clinics, who give advice
to the mothers, or take such other steps as the necessities of
the case require.
Returns of all births registered in Battersea are received
weekly from the District Registrars, and these returns serve
to check the notified birth returns.
A weekly return of all births notified in the Borough is
submitted to the London County Council in accordance with
the requirements of Section 5, Sub-Section (2) of the Notification
of Births Act. Infants born in institutions in the Borough
of Battersea, but belonging to other districts, are notified to the
Medical Officers of the districts concerned.
Particulars relating to transferable births registered are
supplied by the Registrar-General, for the purpose of adjusting
and correcting the birth statistics of the Borough in the
periodical and Annual Reports of the Medical Officer of
Health.
Maternity and Child Welfare.
Maternity and Child Welfare work is generally held to
include the following activities—the instruction of mothers in
the hygiene of pregnancy and the feeding and management of
young children up to 5 years of age; the provision of free
meals or meals at reduced cost for necessitous expectant and
nursing mothers, and of milk for young children; provision of
medical advice and treatment for mothers, and infants and
children up to 5 years of age at special centres, and in lying-in
wards in hospitals or special homes; the supervision of mother
and child by home visiting; the provision of " home helps "
during confinement; regulation of conditions of employment
of expectant and recently-confined women, etc.
The Maternity and Child Welfare scheme of the Council,
the revision and development of which was begun early in 1919
on the lines suggested in the circular letter of the Local
Government Board, dated August, 1918, made most gratifying