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28
Ante-natal Clinics.
Wednesday and Thursday Morning Clinics.—The attendance
at these clinics speaks well for the popularity of the Borough
Maternity Scheme—and Home—the average attendance per clinic
being 25.1, with 490 new cases and a total of 2,585 attendances.
A large proportion of the patients attending continue to be
primiparæ and booking, as a rule, is carried out at a reasonably
early date, i.e. before the 5th month in most cases.
Friday Morning Latchmere (Southlands) Clinic.—This clinic
shows a good attendance, many patients now being referred to it
from the other non-central clinics, i.e., All Saints and Plough Road,
which tends to centralise the cases and unify the Ante-natal work.
The average attendance at this clinic is 13.5, a figure at first
apparently rather low, when compared with the Maternity Home
clinic figure of 25.1; 208 new cases have, however, been seen
during the year, which compares very favourably with the 490 new
cases seen by the Wednesday and Thursday Home Clinics,
the rather low average being accounted for by the transference of
cases from this clinic to the Home clinics during the last month of
pregnancy.
General Remarks.—The year 1928 has been, I hope, a proof of
the necessity of a Resident Medical Officer at the Borough Maternity
Home.
Personally, I have found the R.M.O. of great assistance to me
in carrying out treatment suggested by me, for ante-natal patients
—e.g. albuminurias, antepartum haemorrhages—whose admission to
the Home has been necessary, and also by her knowledge of the
patients gained during her attendance with me, at the Ante-natal
Clinics she assists in linking up the Ante-natal work with the
consultant service when this is necessary.
I should like to again emphasise the desirability of booking
early in pregnancy, i.e. about the 3rd month. Patients during the
past year have shown a greater tendency to do this, especially
in cases where difficulty in a former pregnancy, or loss of a child
at a former confinement has taken place.
Among conditions requiring treatment, which have been
diagnosed at a stage in pregnancy which allows this to be carried
out with benefit, I may mention the following: cardiac disease,
pulmonary T.B. and other chest conditions, nose and eye conditions,
dental caries, haemorrhoids, anal fistula, uterine fibroids, &c.
The booking of patients for admission to the Home, &c., during
these last one or two months of pregnancy, which occasionally
happens, is in my opinion to be definitely deprecated.
I am adding below a short table of figures, which are of interest
in connection with the ante-natal work.