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first full-time Maternity Medical Officer was appointed and two
Ante-natal Clinics were established.
1922 witnessed the opening of the Maternity Home and
a greatly increased demand for dried milk, etc. By 1923 the
number of consultations held weekly had increased to nine.
Visiting in connection with foster children, etc., was
being performed and the Maternity Home was making excellent
progress.
In 1924 an Artificial Sunlight Centre was suggested,
which was opened in the following year.
Other arrangements which had been made during the past
few years had been provision for home nursing, facilities for
minor operations, arrangements made for use of Babies' Home,
convalescent treatment provision as well as the extension of the
Welfare Centres and Ante-natal Clinics.
Twenty years ago the average infantile mortality rate was
132. During the following five years the figure had fallen to
112, and in 1914 the figure had fallen still further to just
over 100.
1920 witnessed the first very marked drop in the infantile
mortality rate, the figure that year being 75. the lowest recorded
figure was 56 in 1922, the average for the years 1920—1925
being 68.
As to the particular form of child welfare work which
has had more influence than others on the lower infantile
mortality rate, I am afraid an answer cannot be expressed in
terms of any special phase of the work.
There is no question of doubt that, particularly in recent
years, an enormous step forward has been taken in connection
with the education of parents and particularly mothers in the
rearing of healthy children, in which connection, regular attendance
at our Welfare Centres where the infants are weighed and
where the mother has the advantage of the Medical Officers'
and Health Visitors' advice, have undoubtedly combined very
largely to this satisfactory condition of affairs.
One feels one ought to add, however, that examples of
almost unbelievable ignorance are still encountered from time
to time, and there should, therefore, be no slackening of our
efforts to reach the irreducible minimum in connection with the
infantile mortality rate.