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Health Visitors continue to teach various groups both in the
Health Centres and outside in the community but it was in the
primary school that the greatest change took place in 1970.
Attitudes of Head Teachers have undergone a considerable change
and many are now aware of the need for sex education for the
younger child and are starting programmes of their own. Several
have asked for help from school sisters and many now give informal
talks on menstruation to small groups.
Mothercraft classes continue to be given by Health Visitors and
School Sisters in the senior schools, a school for educationally
subnormal girls and a school for maladjusted children.
During regular hygiene surveys, informal talks are given to
children of all age groups.
Surveys
Frequently all staff, doctors, health visitors, district nurses and
school nurses are called upon to participate in important and
necessary national surveys. The following surveys, aimed at the
detection and prevention of health problems, are receiving the
services of Borough staff at present:—
Childhood Cancers
At the request of the Department of Social Medicine at Oxford
University two deaths were followed up during 1970.
South East Regional Survey of Certain Chromosome Anomalies
and Congenital Malformations
These cases were notified to the Paediatric Research Unit at
Guy's Hospital, but from January, 1970, there was some modification
in the scheme of notification, three conditions being deleted
(intersex states, Down's syndrome and infantile pyloric stenosis)
and two new ones included (major defects of the central nervous
system and harelip and cleft palate). In consequence, notifications
of still births as well as live births became necessary.
In the cases of Down's syndrome and infantile pyloric stenosis,
sufficient numbers have now been obtained for full and useful
studies, and the notification at birth of intersex states has not
been shown as the best way of tackling this problem.
The conditions now being studied include:—
Major defects of the central nervous system
Hare-lip with or without cleft palate
Cleft palate without hare-lip
Hirschsprung's Disease
Autosomal chromosome anomalies