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106
The substantial saving of child-life which is going on
must be credited to an improvement in the sanitary standard
of domestic life, and to the missionary work on infant-care by
health visitors who provide parents with advice which conduces
to the reducing of minor ailments, to their prompt discovery, and
to the early treatment necessary for the prevention of more serious
disease, as well as to the raising of the standard of physical fitness
in later life.
Our Advice Card strongly presses breast feeding, and purposely
omits any advice as to artificial feeding, in order to
influence the mother, the doctor, the midwife, the nurse, the help,
or any other person in attendance, so that breast-feeding may be
persevered with until the Health Visitor comes upon the scene,
after the doctor or midwife or student has ceased to attend the
lying-in, which is generally 10 days after.
It is clearly the duty of the Local Sanitary Authority to do
what is possible to stem this wastage of infant life, and Urban
Authorities are, therefore, doing special work to this end. It
follows, of course, that the scope and the methods adopted vary
with the proportion and nature of the population; but valuable
work in the direction of advising mothers upon infant care is
now being carried on in every Metropolitan Borough but one.
The essential provision is a well-qualified official woman
Health Visitor, who is assisted and directed in her work by a
qualified medical man who has devoted some special study to
infant hygiene. Then with the information obtained by the
Sanitary Authority under the Notification of Births Act, the
Health Visitor (assisted if necessary by a few voluntary workers
of experience) can get into touch with the poorer mothers who
have recently borne children, immediately after the medical practitioner
ceases his attendance; and by practical advice and stimulation
much may be done to ensure that the child is tided over
the most dangerous first 12 months of life. While much may be
done by home visitation, it is obvious that great advantages
accrue to the provision of a small Infant Care or Child Welfare
Centre to which parents may bring their infants on certain