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There were four deaths of Barking women associated
with pregnancy or childbirth. Two women died in the early
months of pregnancy, before they came under your Maternity
and Child Welfare Scheme; one only of these can be classified
strictly as a maternal death. One woman was evacuated and
died out of the town and her death is not allocated to
Barking; of all the cases delivered under your schemes,
numbering approximately 960, one only died.
Though it cannot be said statistically, I am
persuaded the damage due to childbirth is today slight
indeed compared with a generation ago.
(4) SOCIAL CONDITIONS.
(a) General.
The outbreak of hostilities considerably affected
the social conditions of the Borough during 1939 5 many
women and children were evacuated to reception areas.
A large proportion of these, particularly the women, returned
to Barking before the end of the year.
A serious thing I have noticed since the outbreak
of war is that the public is less and less interested in
preventive medicine than they have been heretofore.
Curative medicine captures the public imagination; it is
difficult for parents to think seriously of conditions such
as defective teeth, eyes, tonsils, etc., which are detrimental
to their children or more likely will be detrimental to them
some years hence, when their immediate concern is that they
may be safe say for the next 24 hours. War of necessity
limits ones vision to the immediate future; this, so far as
I can see, is a most harmful influence at the present time.
(b) Schemes of Relief.
There is no doubt that in drawing up schemes of
relief, Public Assistance Committees must have had in their
minds other forms of relief which are available. For
necessitous persons such forms of relief include, among
many others, free meals for children of school age.
Children in necessitous households will almost
invariably be living on a diet which is deficient in the
necessary protective food stuffs and a certain number of
them will share with other children the danger of eating
foods which have been improperly cooked and thereby less
digestible than they otherwise would be.
If such children be given one proper meal a day,
the appetite of these children will be increased because
it has been found that one good meal deserves another.
Not only will the appetite be increased, as such,
but the proper meal a day will increase the rate of growth
so that consequently from this standpoint also the child
would require more food.
Households, therefore, where the family income is
less than the standard rate and whose children are given a
well balanced, properly prepared meal, should be subsidised
by an allowance, rather than the free meal provided being
regarded as a form of relief which may be taken into account
when assessing scales of relief.
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