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8
Notification of Births Acts, 1907 and 1915.—These Acts require the father of a child,
if actually residing in the house where a birth takes place at the time of its occurrence, and
any person in attendance upon the mother at the time of, or within six hours after, the birth,
to give notice in writing of the birth to the Medical Officer of Health of the district in which
the child is born, in the manner provided. Notification applies in the case where a child has
issued forth from its mother after the expiration of the twenty-eighth week of pregnancy,
whether alive or dead.
In practice, it is almost always the doctor or midwife who notifies a birth, and not the
father of the child.
During the year, 2,032 live births were notified to the Medical Officer of Health. There
were also 80 stillbirths notified. Of the 2,112 living and stillbirths notified, 49-4 per cent,
were notified by medical practitioners, 357 per cent, by midwives, 0*8 per cent, by parents,
and 14*1 per cent, by medical students or other persons.
A comparison of the Notification Register with the returns supplied by the local Registrars
of Births shows that 98-8 per cent, of the live births and 98'7 per cent, of the stillbirths
occurring within the Borough were duly notified. It will be seen that only a small
proportion of births are not notified and so escape being brought to the notice of the
Medical Officer of Health until they come to be registered within the statutory period of
six weeks. In nearly every case of default a cautionary letter was sent to the person
responsible, and in no instance did the Maternity and Child Welfare Committee consider
it necessary to institute legal proceedings.
DEATHS.
The number of deaths registered during the year as having taken place in the Borough
was 2,000.
Of these, 589 were of persons whose residence was not in Paddington, 507 dying in
Paddington Institutions and 82 in other places in the Borough.
There were also reported to the Registrar-General 420 deaths of Paddington persons
whose deaths occurred outside the Borough.
This correction gives the nett number of deaths for Paddington as 1,831, making an annual
death-rate of 13 05.

The foregoing table gives the numbers of deaths from the various causes as classified
locally. The figures differ somewhat from those supplied by the Registrar-General in
the table appearing on next page.