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17
There is remarkable statistical testimony to support this statement. Not one of the sixteen
maternal deaths in 1922, the seventeen in 1923 and the five in 1924 occurred amongst women who
had attended an ante-natal clinic. Similarly, not one of the women who died in 1925 had attended
an ante-natal clinic, but two had received skilled advice from other sources.
This evidence is very encouraging to those voluntary and official workers who are engaged in
urging mothers to seek advice from their own doctors in the early days of pregnancy or to accept
the ante-natal attention which is being offered at the Infant Welfare Institutions in the Borough.
The midwifery service in Kensington is satisfactory and cannot be regarded as in any way
responsible for any of the deaths which occurred during last year. The poor in North Kensington are
adequately provided for by the well-trained staff of midwives attached to the Queen Charlotte's
Hospital Nurses' Home in Ladbroke Grove. Difficult cases found by these midwives are sent
immediately to the hospital for in-patient treatment. As there is such an excellent organisation
available for the poorest women in North Kensington, the midwives engaged in private practice
in the Borough are able to deal with all the mothers who can afford the usual fees. The private
midwives are generally satisfactory, and I have no evidence that there is any unqualified woman
in the Borough carrying on a midwifery practice.
The arrangements made with the Kensington Board of Guardians in 1922, under which
women who show early signs of what might prove to be puerperal fever can be admitted to the St.
Mary Abbot's Hospital without delay and without the doctor making an official notification, have
been made use of on a number of occasions with the result that women in the preliminary stages of
that disease have been treated by the Medical Superintendent with success and in a way which is
not practicable in the patients' homes.
On page 81 of this report, there is an account of the Council's Maternity Home which was
opened in 1924.
The provision of this Maternity Home completes an organisation, secured by co-operation
between various bodies and extension of their efforts, which aims at safety in confinement. The
organisation is adequate and efficient, and all that remains is to induce working-class mothers to
avail themselves in larger numbers of the facilities which have been provided for the protection of
their health by the Council and the various authorities working with them.