View report page

THE HEALTH OF BARKING
year.” Gibbon's world was clearly no world for babies but we have not to go so
far back as the 18th Century. The Medical Officer of Health for Barking in his
Annual Report for 1903 records a death rate of babies under 1 year of age of 113 per
1,000 live births and contrasts this favourably with the general rate for England and
Wales of 132. He had reason for satisfaction; since the Barking rate for 1897 was 178!
The steady improvement shown through the century is very gratifying but it
must never give rise to a sense of complacency. Much remains to be done to discover
the fundamental causes of death in infancy: to discover them and to annihilate them.
In Appendix A, Tables II and III set out the certified causes of death of these
babies and Table IV compares the Infantile Mortality Rates of Barking with those
of England and
Wale generally
and with the
County Boroughs
and Great Towns
in particular, over
a number of years.
The favourable
position occupied
by Barking
will be noted. The
chief causes of
death are recorded
graphically on
this page. Mark
the precedence
which prematurity
takes and note the
grim toll of
broncho-pneumonia.
In 1946 as many as 63.4% of those babies who died in the first year of life
did so in the 4 weeks following birth and 87.8% of these babies died in the first
week. This is no freak incidence; it is our common experience year after year.
I have set out the facts in Table II in Appendix A and tried to represent the core of
the matter pictorially for I am most anxious to point this out. When the woman
(and man) in the street understand these things then fewer babies will die.
Social Services.
General. Your social services remain unchanged since last year and it is not
proposed to discuss them at length in this year's Report.
Page 5