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in a number of industrial centres throughout the kingdom, the
inquiry in each case to be limited to homogeneous districts and to
families of the same class and circumstances. It will relate to children
born in the year 1908, and, as it is to cover the whole of the first year
of life, it cannot be completed until some time in 1909. The two main
objects of the inquiry, so far as the Home Office is concerned, are:—
(1) To determine the effect of the employment of women before
and after childbirth on the health of mother and child, and
particularly by means of a comparison between women who
have been at work in a factory or workshop and women who
have been otherwise employed or engaged only in domestic
duties, whether employment in a factory or workshop has any
special prejudicial effect; and,
(2) so far as the Medical Officer of Health may be able to collect
material bearing on the question, to gauge the social and
economic effects which further restrictions on the employment
of women in factories and workshops before and after confinement
would entail, and in particular whether such restrictions
would or would not have indirect effects prejudicial to infant
life, either (a) by adding to the economic burden of childbearing
and so leading to a further fall in the birth-rate, or
(b) by increasing the poverty of the household, and so—
through worse feeding, &c.—leading to an increase in the
infant death-rate.
The second group of infant deaths comprise those who are born
physically healthy but who die from improper feeding, neglect, and
insanitary conditions (overcrowding, filth, &c.), but of these the chief
is undoubtedly the improper feeding. Fortunately, the proportion of
children born healthy is much higher than of those born defective; it
has been placed at from 80 to 90 per cent. The mother may be ill-fed,
anaemic, or suffering from general ill-health, but, as a general rule (if
the illness is not due to syphilis or consumption, and there is no
hereditary taint in the family), the child will be born healthy. However,
if the mother is in ill-health or badly fed, it is useless to expect
that the mother will be able to suckle her child for very long, and even
if she can do so the milk may be of an inferior quality on which the
child is unable to thrive. As it is in the highest degree important that
mothers should nurse their children, it is essential that during the
whole of their pregnancy their health should be maintained at the best
possible standard. So soon as artificial means of feeding have to be
adopted, considerable care has to be exercised, and in a great many
instances the food which is given is not suited to the requirements