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13
Notification of Births Act, 1907.
During the year 4380 notifications were received under the Notifications
of Births Act, 1907.
Discrepancies in Registration of Births.
The Public Health and Housing Committee considered a report of
the Medical Officer on the subject of discrepancies in the dates of births,
as notified to the Medical Officer, and the same births as registered by
the Registrars, and directed the attention of the Registrar-General be
called to the matter.
The following is the report mentioned above :—
"An anomalous state of affairs has been revealed since the
adoption of the Notification of Births Act, 1907, in the Borough.
"By Section 1 (4) the Registrars of Births and Deaths shall at
all reasonable times have access to notices of births received by the
Medical Officer of Health under this Act or to any book in which
those notices may be recorded.
"By Section 2 (5) in London the Medical Officer of Health of
every Metropolitan Borough in which this Act is in force shall send
weekly to the London County Council, on a form prescribed by the
Local Government Board, a list of all notices of births received by
him under the Act during the week.
"In Poplar, the Public Health Department, to assist the
Registrars, sends a press copy of the weekly list mentioned above, to
the Registrars of Births and Deaths. Every week the Registrars
forward to the Public Health Department a return of births registered
by them during the week. When the Registrars' returns are received
the children are for the most part over six weeks old.
"Now, it is found in many instances the date of the birth of the
child as given by the person registering the birth differs from the
date notified to the Medical Officer of Health. For example:—The
birth of a female child was notified on the 13th January to the
Medical Officer of Health as taking place on the 12th January; but
in the Registrar's return for the week ended 12th March the date of
the birth was entered as 25th January, and the Registrar informs the
Medical Officer of Health the person registering such birth rigidly
adhered to the date being the 25th January; hence the Registrar had
no alternative but to enter in his return the 25th January.