View report page

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, 2,091 live births were notified to the Medical Officer of Health. There were
also 69 stillbirths notified. Of the 2,160 living and stillbirths notified, 60.6 per cent. were notified
by medical practitioners, 30.1 per cent. by midwives, 0.5 per cent. by parents, and 8.8 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 98.6 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. In only one instance did the Maternity and Child Welfare
Committee consider it necessary to institute legal proceedings, a summons being issued against a
medical practitioner. The case was dismissed under the Probation of Offenders Act on payment of
£2 2s. 0d. costs.
DEATHS.
The number of deaths registered during the year as having taken place in the Borough was 1,756.
Of these, 580 were of persons whose residence was not in Paddington, 499 dying in Paddington
Institutions and 81 in other places in the Borough.
There were also reported to the Registrar-General 567 deaths of Paddington persons whose deaths
occurred outside the Borough.
This correction gives the nett number of deaths for Paddington as 1,743, making an annual deathrate
of 12.47.
The Registrar-General has recently calculated a comparability factor for each district, by the
use of which differences in mortality rates due to variations in the sex and age constitution of the
populations of districts selected for comparison may to a great extent be eliminated. The factor for
Paddington is .99, which applied to the crude death rate of 12.47 per 1,000 persons for the year 1934,
gives an adjusted death rate of 12.34 per 1,000 persons.

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