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Notification of Births.—Section 255 of the Public Health (London) Act, 1936, requires 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 2,002 live births were notified to the Medical Officer of Health. There were
also 70 stillbirths notified. Of the 2,072 living and stillbirths notified, 68.7 per cent, were notified
by medical practitioners, 23.6 per cent, by midwives, 0.2 per cent, by parents, and 7.5 per cent,
by maternity assistants or other persons.
A comparison of the Notification Register with the returns supplied by the local Registrars of
Births shows that 99.0 per cent, of the live births and 98.9 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
cautionary letters were sent to the persons responsible. 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
1,887. Of these 643 were of persons whose residence was not in Paddington, 577 dying in Paddington
institutions and 66 in other places in the Borough.
There were also reported to the Registrar-General 562 deaths of Paddington persons whose
deaths occurred outside the Borough.
This correction gives the net number of deaths for Paddington as 1,806, making an annual
death-rate of 13.05.
The Registrar-General has 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 13.05 per 1,000 persons for the year 1937, gives an
adjusted death rate of 12.91 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.