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46
During the last year, 387 new patients attended the ante-natal
clinics; practically the same number as the year before. Of these,
131 were normal cases, 204 were more or less abnormal, 9 were found
not to be pregnant, and 43 were women who attended the Clinics for
the first time after their confinements, being in need of post-natal
care.
The number of births occurring in the Borough during 1936 was
1.048 and 327 pregnant women resident there attended our Clinics
last year. It is found, therefore. that 31 per cent. of the expectant
mothers received ante-natal care at the Borough Council's Clinics.
It is a matter for great thankfulness that during the last five
years, no deaths in childbirth have been recorded amongst the series
of 1,688 expecant mothers who attended the Ante-natal Clinics during
that period. Since the year 1929 there have been 2 maternal deaths
in a series of 2,315 mothers—a maternal mortality rate of just under
1 per 1,000 during an eight year period. The maternal mortality rate
for England and Wales was 3 94 per 1,000 births, in 1935.
These favourable results have only been obtained, of course, by
constant co-operation with the different Hospitals where these women
were confined as well as with the practising midwives in Hampstead,
and it demonstrates the value of the splendid work done by the latter
and by doctors and midwives in the Hospitals, as well as the value of
ante-natal supervision.
The neo-natal death rate, as it is called, is the death rate amongst
newly-born infants in the first month of life, and it is believed that
ante-natal care of the mothers can lower it considerably. Only 3 of
the expectant mothers attending the Clinics in 1936 lost their babies in
the tirst month of life. This good result is unhappily offset somewhat
by the fact that 7 mothers had stillborn infants during the year.
It will have been observed that 43 women attended the Clinics
for the first time after confinements or miscarriages as they needed
post-natal care. In addition, 57 women who had attended the Clinics
before their deliveries came up to see me afterwards. Of this
series of 100 women, 5 had had miscarriages, 4 of them suffering
from subinvolution and 1 from prolapse of the uterus. The remain-