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70
Applications are dealt with at the meetings of the Maternity and Child
Welfare Sub-Committee. Grants are made for a period of one calendar
month and are reconsidered at each subsequent meeting of the Committee.
Although the addition of milk to the diet of mothers and children
does much to ensure that they will be protected from any danger of
vitamin deficiency, further protective additions to the diet are desirable
in many cases. To meet this need the Council has arranged for the supply
at the centres of cod liver oil preparations for mothers and children.
A few other special dietetic articles containing calcium and/or iron are
also issued, when required, to ante-natal and post-natal cases in which there
seems a possibility of a shortage of vitamins or of necessary minerals in the
diet. These preparations are supplied on the recommendation of the
medical officer conducting the clinic. They may be issued free in cases
where the income falls within the limits which permit the issue of free
milk.
Preparations of dried milk amounting to 4,504 pounds were distributed
during the year. The amount expended by the Council for fresh milk
as extra nourishment for mothers and infants was £660 10s. 0d.
Nutrition.—The Minister of Health in Circular No. 1519 issued to
Maternity and Child Welfare Authorities in April, 1937, drew attention
to the report of the Advisory Committee on Nutrition and in particular
to the emphasis laid in the report on the nutritional value of milk, and
requested the local authorities concerned to take an early opportunity of
reviewing their arrangements for Maternity and Child Welfare in the light
of the report.
The Minister referred to a circular issued in 1932 in which attention
was drawn to the importance of securing that nursing mothers should be
provided with a sufficiency of calcium, phosphates and vitamin D in their
diet, and of increasing the consumption of milk, especially by growing
children. He urged that the arrangements made by local authorities
should enable sufficient milk or other food to be provided whenever
necessary for the maintenance of the health of the mother or young child,
and that existing rules limiting the supply of milk to expectant mothers
to the last two or three months of pregnancy or in the case of children
up to a certain age (normally three years) should be revised.
The Medical Officer of Health in a report to the Public Health Committee,
pointed out that the City Council in 1936 had reviewed its
arrangements for the supply of extra nourishment to expectant and
nursing mothers and infants and that the suggestions made by the Minister
in this respect had been practically fulfilled. He suggested, however,