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(2) The provision where necessary of help for mothers at and about the
time of their accouchement, either in their own homes or in institutions.
(3) The provision of institutions where mothers and young children can
obtain advice and treatment. These institutions are to be preventive
as well as curative, and would fall under two headings:—
(a) Resident hospitals (e.g., hospitals for sick children, and for
diseases of pregnancy and the puerperium).
(b) Consultations, etc., of the out-patient type (e.g., infant
sultations, maternity centres, and clinics for sick children).
The present position in St. l'ancras is detailed in the following section,
which is divided into three parts on the lines of this classification.
1.—Home Visiting.
Health Visitors.—At the present time only one health visitor is available for
maternity and child welfare, and this lady has also other duties to perform.
This only enables a small proportion of the five thousand births which are
notified annually to be visited, and additional stuff is urgently required for this
purpose.*
In addition to the visits made by the Council's health visitor, a good deal of
visiting is being done from the various infant welfare centres, both by trained
workers paid by the institutions and by voluntary visitors. These visits are
confined to mothers who are in attendance at the centres, and are therefore
supplemental to the visits paid by the Council's health visitor. They do not
abolish the need of at least one call by her at each case.
Advice Cards.—A printed card of information and advice is sent by post from
the Town Hall to every mother upon the receipt of notification of birth.
Expectant Mothers. —Until recently no information as to expectant mothers
was available, but now arrangements have been made whereby the Medical
Officer of Health will be furnished periodically with lists of those women who
have made arrangements for their accouchement with University College
Hospital, Middlesex Hospital, the New Hospital for Women, and the Maternity
Nursing Association. This will ensure ante-natal information in regard to
more than one quarter of the births in the borough. Similar information
from midwives and medical practitioners will be welcomed, but, at any rate,
for a time is not likely to be available to any great extent. Now that we shall
receive lists of expectant mothers an appropriate Advice Card will be prepared
and arrangements made for a copy to be given to each expectant mother
when she arranges with the hospitals or other institutions for attendance at
her confinement.
Good results are to be expected from this extension of our visiting and other
work to the ante-natal period, and also from the work amongst expectant
mothers which the various local centres are beginning, and which is mentioned
in a later paragraph. Already the health visitor is calling upon as many
expectant mothers as she can manage, and has been welcomed by them in a
manner which augurs well for this kind of work. This, however, still further
reduces the number of post-natal visits she is able to make.
* The Council on 21st July, 1915, resolved to appoint additional staff