View report page

30
INFANTILE MORTALITY.
The infantile mortality rate of any district is the number of deaths of infants
under one year of age per 1,000 of the births which occurred in the same year.
The number of babies under one year who died in St. Marylebone in 1926 was
111, and the number of births in that year 1,359. The infantile mortality rate is
therefore 81, which is somewhat above that for 1925 (78 per 1,000).
The course which the rate has taken is graphically shown in the chart on
page 32, which indicates clearly that in spite of occasional variations the only
really serious interruption to the decline was in 1917.
The means adopted in the Borough with a view to bringing about a reduction
in infantile mortality and generally improving the life and health chances of
infants and children are described in a separate section of this report—Maternity
and Child Welfare. This part being merely statistical, it is not proposed at this
point to do more than give some sort of analysis of the figures relating to deaths
amongst infants.
Causes.—A Table (Ministry of Health Table I.) will be found on page 31,
in which, in addition to the causes of death, is shown the distribution of the
deaths according to age and locality.
So far as age and causation are concerned, conditions vary little year by
year. In 1926, as in other years, the greatest number of deaths occurred in the
early weeks of life. Of the babies, 38 were less than one month old when they
died, and 55 less than three months. The figures for 1925 were 31 and 45.
The outstanding causes of death and the proportions traceable to them were
those usually noted. Prematurity (numbers 12, 13 and 14 in the table), which as
usual heads the list, caused 31 deaths, four more than in the year 1925. Diarrhoea
and enteritis (7 and 8) accounted for 22 in 1925, and for 16 in 1926. Respiratory
diseases, the third of the main causes, took 18 in 1925, and in 1926 17.
The commoner infectious diseases together led to 7 deaths amongst infants,
the particular disease being in each case measles. Two deaths were stated
to be due to overlaying, 2 to tuberculosis, 5 to convulsions, 3 to meningitis, and
15 to pneumonia.
In the following table information supplementary to that in the large table
is given with regard to deaths in the various sub-districts.