View report page

34
It is certain that clinics of this sort are necessary, and it is inevitable that in
a short time they will come to be regarded as an essential part of every properly
constituted maternity and child welfare scheme.
As the Child Guidance Council intimated that they would be unable to bear
the cost of the clinic beyond the end of March, 1939, the Borough Council decided
to take over the clinic, with Dr. Calver as psychiatrist, as part of the maternity and
child welfare scheme of the Borough as from the 1st April, 1939, the Minister of
Health approving the arrangement for a year from that date and requesting to be
furnished in due course with a further report on the working of the clinic.
Food and Diet (Weight Control) Clinic.
Many of the mothers attending the welfare centres have noticed that they have
put on weight excessively, particularly after the birth of their children. As errors
of diet are frequently the cause of obesity and other disorders among the clinic
mothers, it was decided to try experimentally at Health Centre No. 2, under the
supervision of Dr. Wallace, the Maternity and Child Welfare Medical Officer, a food
and diet clinic at which mothers could obtain advice on diet with a view to reduction
of their weight or the correction of digestive or other disorders resulting from eating
the wrong foods.
In the operation of the Clinic the Council have been fortunate in obtaining the
voluntary assistance of Miss Margaret Grant, B.Sc., who is a specialist in dietetics,
having held the appointment of Dietician at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, and
who is at present Dietician at King's College for Social Science.
Since the clinic was established on the 8th April, 1938, sessions have been held
weekly, first at 8 p.m. and subsequently at 5 p.m., on Fridays. The mothers are
weighed and a complete physical examination made to find any physical cause for
the obesity or any condition which might render a special diet unsuitable. A careful
history of the food consumed daily by the patient is taken and a daily menu advised
in which the amounts of fat and carbohydrate are reduced. Each patient is dealt
with individually, the menu given being modified from the diet they have previously
been consuming.
During the experimental period 28 patients have between them made a total
number of 114 attendances.
The mothers who have kept to the diets advised and have continued to attend
have all lost weight, and their general health has also benefited from the treatment.
Only 6 mothers have, however, attended regularly for a period of three months
or more. The chief difficulty appears to be the regular continuance on the diet; as
a result the rules are dropped and they cease to attend.
The effects of such a chnic are not confined to the simple reduction of weight
among a certain group of women. The vast majority of mothers of the working
classes consume diets which have a great excess of sugar and other carbohydrates
and are lacking in proteins, minerals and protective foodstuffs. The clinic has been
a valuable means of propaganda for teaching the principles of correct feeding.
Massage Clinic.
Sessions were held twice weekly at Health Centre No. 2.
Orthopaedic Treatment.
Cases requiring orthopaedic treatment are referred by the medical officers at
the welfare centres to the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, which is situated
in the Borough.
Artificial Sunlight Therapy.
Clinics for providing this form of treatment were held thrice weekly at Health
Centre No. 2.