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Women are carefully accepted for home confinement according to the recommendations
of the Cranbrook report of 1959 and, generally, only those women who are
pregnant for the second, third or fourth time and who show no medical or obstetrical abnormality
are booked for home delivery. They are urged to make arrangements with their own
doctors or general practitioner obstetricians for maternity medical services and, during 1965,
out of 327 cases attended by the Council's midwives, only seven had no booked doctor. Of
these, two were cases of early miscarriage, one was a premature birth in a woman visiting
the district, and two were deliveries where neither a doctor, midwive nor hospital had been
booked. Thus, in almost 100% of cases booked with the Council's midwives, there was also
a booked doctor.
Ante-natal care is usually given by the midwife and the doctor working together
at weekly clinics held at the Council's Welfare Centres, but in some cases the woman may
be visited at home by the midwife, or she may attend the doctor's surgery.
Post-natal examinations are carried out by the doctors in their surgeries.
The table below gives particulars of premature live births attended by domiciliary
midwives in the borough, i.e., the Council's midwives and those of Queen Charlotte's
Hospital.

All these babies were nursed at home with the exception of one child who was
transferred to hospital and who died within twenty-four hours.
Home assessment visits are made by midwives (including the midwives of the
District Nursing Association and Queen Charlotte's Hospital) at the request of a hospital,
when a woman is being considered for admission on social grounds or for "early discharge".
The midwife visits the home and gives her opinion, often after consultation with the health
visitor, as to whether it provides a suitable environment for confinement or puerperal nursing.