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progress during the year, and may be said to be now an
almost complete comprehensive scheme, including within its
scope provision for the welfare of women and children during
the pre-natal, natal, and post-natal periods.
Hitherto maternity and child welfare schemes were
restricted mainly to provision for the care of the mother and
her infant after birth, and though much valuable work was
accomplished—which was reflected in the gradual and steady
decline in the infant mortality returns of the nation—it was
felt that the pre-natal and natal aspects of the work were not
receiving adequate attention and recognition.
The coming into force of the Maternity and Child Welfare
Act, the Magna Charta of motherhood, enabling all local
health authorities, with the sanction of the Local Government
Board, to make provision for the welfare of women and children,
and providing for all work in this connection, undertaken by
official or by voluntary effort officially approved, to rank for
contribution from the National Exchequer to the extent of
half the cost incurred, gave a great impetus to the development
of maternity and child welfare schemes The circular letter of
the Local Government Board alluded to, gave general advice
as to the lines upon which such schemes could be best developed,
and the valuable memorandum by Sir George Newman, Chief
Medical Officer to the Ministry of Health, which was issued
by the Ministry in 1919, emphasised the vast importance of
attention to the health and welfare of the mothers during the
pre-natal and lying-in periods.
The effect of this impetus is shown in the remarkable rise
which has taken place in the expenditure on maternity and child
welfare work since 1914. In that year the total expenditure,
the funds to defray which were mostly provided out of rates
and taxes, was £83,000. Following the great development of
State aid and control, in 1920-1921 this had increased to
nearly two millions pounds (£1,864,000).
That the expenditure has not been wisely incurred there
will be few prepared to contest. The results are shown in the
great decline in infant mortality; in the increased facilities and
care for maternity, both before the birth of the child and
during the lying-in period; in the provision of milk, nursing
attendance, and hospital treatment where necessary.
In Battersea the Council have taken a keen interest in all
measures, having for their object the welfare of women and
children, and from the first have availed themselves of the
increased powers contained in the Act, by developing a comprehensive
scheme, which from its inception was based, in the main,
on municipal lines. Wherever possible, voluntary effort in this
direction was linked up with that of the ancillary official work;