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12
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 1937 was 63 and the
number of births in that year 859. The infantile mortality rate is therefore 73.
The number of legitimate births was 749 and the deaths amongst legitimate
infants numbered 44, giving a rate of 59. There were 110 illegitimate births and 19
deaths, the rate being 173.
In 1936 the death-rate for all infants per 1,000 live births was 75.
The means adopted in the Borough with a view to reducing this rate and
generally improving the life and health chances of infants and children are described
in a separate section of the 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.—So far as age and causation are concerned, conditions vary little year
by year. In 1937, as in other years, the greatest number of deaths occurred in
the early weeks of life. Of the babies, 31 were less than one month old when they
died and 40 less than three months. The corresponding figures for 1936 were 16
and 28 respectively.
The outstanding causes of death were those usually noted. Prematurity, etc.
(numbers 12, 13 and 14 in the Table), headed the list with 24 deaths in 1937, as
against 15 in 1936, whilst respiratory diseases (numbers 24 and 25) accounted for
14 in 1937 and 8 in 1936. There was a decline in the number of deaths due to
diarrhœa and enteritis (numbers 7 and 8) which caused 10 deaths in 1937 and 22 in
1936.
Amongst the other causes, mention may be made of injury at birth, atelectasis,
convulsions and gastritis, each of which was responsible for two deaths. There was
one case of overlaying.
Christ Church, which always contributes most largely to the infantile as to
most of the other mortality rates, being the most thickly populated area and that
in which there is most poverty, most overcrowding and probably most neglect of
ordinary hygienic precautions, is again at the head of the list with 32 deaths amongst
infants, the same figure as in 1936. Of the 32 deaths, 12 were due to premature
birth and congenital malformation.
Table 8 on the following page shows, in addition to the causes of death, the
distribution of the deaths according to age and locality.