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As experience was gained it became evident that poor mothers fully realised
that it costs more—in money, time, and labour—to rear infants by hand than
bv the hreast. Mothers even begged to be allowed to continue breast feeding
beyond the usual 9 to 12 months on account of the expense of providing fresh
cow's milk. Thus the school first dealt with sucklings and has been gradually
extending its work to babes. The mothers cease to partake of the dinners
with the cessation of suckling, but it was found necessary to extend the consultations
and instructions through the second year of life of the infants.
The medical consultations and weighings, which mothers and infants in their
first and part of their second year attend fortnightly, are now extended to
children Tip to five years of age, who attend monthly up to the end of the second
year, and thereafter will attend quarterly for the purpose of supervising their
growth and development, and for the prevention of those defects which are at
present so commonly found in elementary school children, and which are now
being remedied at such great cost. Instruction will also be given to mothers
in training the functions, the habits, the senses, and the reasoning powers of
their children accordingly as they advance in age, so as to prepare them for
elementary school life.
Furthermore, by affiliation and co-operation with the Day Nursery and the
Nursery School, provision is now madei for those cases in which some of the
children are cared for occasionally or trained regularly away from home during
part of the day.
The great difficulty with regard to the Day Nursery has been reduced to a
minimum by means of restrictions upon the admission of infants under six
months of age.
A daily safeguard has also been adopted both by the Day Nursery and the
Nursery Day School for the protection of the children from the spread of
infectious diseases and the communicable disorders, by subjecting each child to
careful scrutiny by the Matron or Mistress in charge before each admission to
the Institution, and by sending any children not found in perfect health or
condition to the Doctor, or by placing them in isolation until the Doctor comes,
or until they can be sent to the Doctor.
The Day Nursery and Nursery School have agreed to send their charges to
the medical consultations and weighings at the School for Mothers, or to themselves
conduct medical inspections periodically, according to age—under 1½
years, once a fortnight; 1½ to 2 years, once a month; and 2 to 5 or 6 years,
once a quarter; and to keep records and interchange copies of case papers and
entries.
Thus the School for Mothers has become the link in the organisation of a
comprehensive School of Mothercraft and Babe Training from the period of
expectancy of the mother to the compulsory school age of the child.
The objects of the St. Pancras School of Mothercraft and Babe Training
may now be briefly defined as:—
1. The promotion of maternal health and the improvement of the capacity
of mothers for the suckling, care, and training of their infants and
young children.