View report page

60
From the accompanying diagram the infantile mortality rate for
Hampstead is shown. The neo-natal mortality (i.e., the children
dying under the age of 1 month) has not, unfortunately, markedly
decreased in recent years. In Britain, at any rate, the success in
reducing infant mortality has been achieved by a combination of
factors, chief among which are:—
1. The gradual and continued improvement of sanitary conditions
as a whole, and housing in particular.
2. The increased capabilities of young mothers consequent on
the introduction of compulsory free education.
3. The work done, both directly and indirectly, throughout the
country by the various maternity and child welfare organisations.
4. The improvement of the food supplies (milk especially)
available to the working classes owing to increased legal
powers of supervision.
If the causes of death in infants under 1 year be tabulated, it is
found that most of them can properly be placed in one or another of
the following three groups, viz. :—
(a) Respiratory diseases, e.g., bronchitis and broncho-puenmonia.
(b) Gastro-intestinal diseases, e.g., infantile diarrhœa and
enteritis.
(c) Developmental conditions.
But what is of the greatest significance is that, whilst the number
of deaths from both respiratory and gastro-intestinal diseases has
diminished progressively year by year, those of the third group have
shown but little decrease. It would appear, as is in fact the case,
that those factors enumerated above, which have been so potent in
causing a reduction of the infantile death rate as a whole, have made
no marked impression on deaths from developmental conditions. If
these infantile deaths be analysed further, it will be found that well
over 90 per cent, of the deaths from developmental conditions
occurred during the first month of life. In short then, the problem
which is confronting us to-day, in order to reduce the infantile mortality
rate still further, is to remove if possible those factors which
are causing the deaths of infants in the first month of life and which