London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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Poplar 1937

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Poplar, Metropolitan Borough]

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117
Visiting these new families calls for special care. The mother
naturally feels strange in her new surroundings, and several visits are
necessary to gain her confidence and co-operation.
Ante-Natal Visiting.
These visits increase each year. All mothers who failed to keep
their appointment at the Borough Clinics, or at St. Andrew's Hospital,
were visited and a fresh appointment made.
At the request of several Voluntary Hospitals, visits were paid to
the homes of mothers who had booked with them, and reports of the
home conditions were forwarded to the hospitals.
Clinics.
Infant Consultation.
The additional sessions at Simpsons Road, 54, West Ferry Road,
and Old Ford have been most valuable, relieving the overcrowding and
giving opportunity for satisfactory test feeding with nursing mothers.
Ante-Natal.
The new Ante-Natal session at 54, West Ferry Road has met a real
need, saving the Island mothers the journey to the Poplar Clinics.

Post-Natal.

The number of mothers attending this Clinic is increasing yearly:—
193580
1936120
1937279

Health Talks—Education.
The need of so many of our mothers is a sound training in Mothercraft,
and this we endeavour to give in our talks at the Centres. Not a
new-fangled system of bringing up babies by a strict schedule only,
but a perfectly sound and simple method by which the baby is given
the very best chance of health and happiness, and the mother shown
the joys of motherhood instead of a life of drudgery, broken rest and
ill-health. This teaching is most important when given at the AnteNatal
sessions, as the result of wrong feeding and bad handling during
the first year of life can never be completely remedied; and failure to
breast-feed the baby is usually due to lack of preparation.