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28
MATERNITY & CHILD WELFARE.
The most striking branch of modern Public Health
is that concerned with Maternal and Child Welfare.
Dealing, as it does, with some of the most vital
and intimate phases of life, it is one which requires
most elastic, tactful, local administration.
The domestic and environmental conditions in a
poor and congested district like Bethnal Green are
distinctly adverse to child life, while maternity in the
home is a function frequently conducted with all the
added risks of an overcrowded tenement and limited
facilities for cleanliness. The provision of midwifery
is in a variety of hands, some public but mostly private,
while the general supervision of the midwives is in the
hands of the L.C.C. A great deal of the sickness
among young children is treated, so far as it receives
skilled treatment at all, by the general practitioners
and hospitals in the district, notably the Queen's Hospital,
Hackney Road.
Among the agencies seeking to make maternity
safer and child life more satisfactory, the Borough
Council's Maternity and Child Welfare Service can
justly claim a prominent place. The distinctive
features of the Borough Council's contributions are
two :—
(1) It is based on the positive ideal of health as
the normal and looks at disease as a thing to be
prevented.
(2) It seeks, so far as it legally is empowered, to
co - ordinate and supplement existing agencies for
maternal and child welfare.
The variety and extent of the work undertaken by
the Council will be indicated by the following cursory
outline :—
(i) Mothers and children are visited in their
homes by a staff of 10 Health Visitors.