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

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St Pancras 1910

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for St. Pancras, London, Borough of]

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29
INFANTILE MORTALITY AND VITALITY.
In the prevention of mortality and disease, of ill-health and physical defects,
we must commence with the child at the very earliest age possible. But we
cannot reach the young infant directly, we must reach the infant through the
mother, and therefore we must protest against the mother being omitted. Our
medical service must be styled, not infant consultations, but medical consultations
for mothers and infants—mothers first.
Briefly the evolution of mothercraft in St. Pancras was as followsAt the
beginning of this century distrust of artificial feeding of infants began to grow
in St. Pancras, until in 1902-3 all leaflets on artificial feeding were destroyed
and no more distributed, and in 1901 to 1906 the experiment of persistently
preaching and teaching breast-feeding entirely, and converging efforts upon the
mother was carried to the well-known successful issue in the extraordinary fall
of the summer mortality of infants in St. Pancras, as compared with other
boroughs and towns. In 1907 the St. Pancras School for Mothers was started
to provide medical consultations for those mothers and infants unable to procure
medical advice, dinners for mothers suckling their infants, and educational
demonstrations in mothercraft at the School and in the home. In 1910 the
School extended its work to children up to compulsory school age, with a view
to preventing the defects so commonly found on the medical inspection of
schools, and of working in association with day nurseries and nursery schools.
We have got beyond the mere prevention of infant mortality, beyond the
diminution of infant sickness, we are now steaming ahead to the greater
improvement of infant health and physique, and for this purpose Schools of
^Mothercraft and Babe Training are necessary.
A COMPREHENSIVE SCHOOL OF MOTHERCRAFT
AND BABE TRAINING.
(A) THE ST. PANCRAS SCHOOL FOR MOTHERS.
(Associated with the St. Panems Dai/ Nursery and the St. Pancras
Nursery School.)
The St. Pancras School for Mothers has extended its activities so as to
embrace the whole period from the expectancy of the mother to the compulsory
school age of the child, and by association and co-operation with the Hay
Nursery and the Nursery School has now become a comprehensive School of
.Mothercraft and Babe Training.
In St. Pancras the prevention of infantile mortality since 1904 has been
successfully based on the discouragement of hand-feeding and the encouragement
of breast-feeding of infants. The School for Mothers in 1907, in
furtherance of this end, provided (1) periodical medical consultations (weighing
and advice) for both nursing and non-nursing mothers and their infants, (2)
daily dinners for nursing mothers, and (3) periodical instruction and demonstrations
in the arts of Mothercraft at school and at home.