View report page

66
Four of the foster children were resident in Barking for less than
one month ; but of the others, twenty-three were in regular
attendance at the Infant Welfare Clinics. This satisfactory result
is due in great part to the active co-operation of the Infant Life
Protection Visitor with the work of the Maternity and Child
Welfare department.
INFANTILE MORTALITY.
The total number of deaths of infants during the year was 49,
giving an infant mortality rate of 59.9 per thousand registered
births, compared with 80 per thousand for 1925.
The number of infant deaths in the first two quarters of the year
was exceptionally low, and may be accounted for in part by the low
incidence of measles and whooping couph, diseases which an?
particularly fatal to infant life and which in general arc associated
with an increased incidence in respiratory disease. A disquieting
feature towards the end of the third quarter was the occurrence of
an epidemic of summer diarrhoea, which caused 15 deaths, all of
children under 12 months of age, and of these deaths 9 occurred
in infants resident in the Abbey Ward.
Diseases of the respiratory system, bronchitis and pneumonia
were responsible for 10 of the infant deaths.