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12
District.
Puerperal
Fever.
Other
Causes.
Total.
Illegitimate
births per
cent. of
total births.
Deaths in Childbirth.
1928.
Puerperal
Fever.
Other
Causes.
North—
St. Marylebone 2.07 2.60 4.67 10.2 4 5
Hampstead 1.74 1.63 3.37 6.7 1 5
St. Pancras 1.40 1.66 3.06 5.9 4 3
Islington 1.39 1.50 2.89 3.8 9 15
Stoke Newington 2.55 1.88 4.43 3.0 2 3
Hackney 1.75 1.50 3.25 2.8 4 11
Central—
Holborn 2.87 0.61 3.48 8.7 1 —
Finsbury 0.95 1.36 2.31 3.7 4 1
City of London 2.01 1.00 3.01 8.9 1 —
East—
Shoreditch 1.11 1.24 2.35 3.4 3 4
Bethnal Green 0.88 1.66 2.54 2.2 3 —
Stepney 1.04 1.41 2.45 2.5 5 4
Poplar 1.20 1.75 2.95 2.1 — 8
South—
Southwark 1.26 1.43 2.69 3.9 6 5
Bermondsey 1.15 1.76 2.91 2.0 1 4
Lambeth 1.77 1.36 3.13 5.2 4 7
Battersea 0.91 1.88 2.79 3.4 3 4
Wandsworth 1.60 1.67 3.27 3.8 6 13
Camberwell 1.75 1.47 3.22 2.9 8 10
Deptford 1.63 1.74 3.37 2.6 7 4
Greenwich 1.01 1.37 2.38 3.0 3 4
Lewisham 1.05 1.91 2.96 3.3 4 3
Woolwich 1.16 1.64 2.80 3.0 8 5
London County 1.46 1.63 3.09 4.2 116 144
The table shows that during the period 1920-27 the boroughs with the lowest
maternal mortality per 1,000 births were Finsbury, Shoreditch, Greenwich and
Stepney, where the proportion of illegitimate births was also low; and that the
highest mortality occurred in Chelsea, St. Marylebone, Westminster and Stoke
Newington, in which areas the percentage of illegitimate births was generally high.
The deaths per 1,000 births in 1928 are shown in the table on p. 30.
Review of
statistics
relating to
maternal
mortality.
In considering maternal mortality rates from the statistical point of view, the
most striking feature is the rapid decrease in deaths per 1,000 births down to 1901.10
and the small subsequent fall, notwithstanding increased administrative action
directed to improvement of conditions associated with childbirth.
The Central Midwives Board was constituted in 1902 and gradually all practising
midwives came under the supervision of the Board, so that since about 1910 in all
except comparatively few cases mothers have had the help of properly trained nurse
attendants, the Sarah Gamps of other days being by then practically extinct in
London. The maternal mortality rate was already falling before 1900, but the rate
of decrease was considerably greater during 1901-10, when the activities of the Central
Midwives Board developed.
It may be that the result of the complete replacement of untrained by trained
midwives effected improvements among the class of the population which was
chiefly contributing towards the high maternal mortality rate; the reduction of
the mortality in this class to a figure approximating to that of the class already well
provided for would lessen the scope and rate of further decline.
In the following table the maternal mortality in London at various periods since
1860 is stated, (1) per 1,000 births, and (2) per 1,000 married women. Three assump-