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The Health of Barking
During the first half of the year there were periods when the number of
vehicles available was reduced by mechanical breakdowns due to the age of the
ambulances. The two new Daimler ambulances with Lomas bodies, the delivery
of which was promised for early 1948, had not been delivered on the appointed day.
To-day the Ambulance Service has become the responsibility of the Essex
County Council, and is administered centrally at Chelmsford.
Breast Feeding.
Mary was one of our ideal mothers. She breast-fed her baby, and perhaps,
feeling a little virtuous because, of course, to breast-feed a baby is a tie, she was
rather impatient, in a very nice way, with women who didn't give their children
breast feeding, which is their heritage.
Repeatedly, I am emphasising that civilisation only happened yesterday, from
which it is quite obvious that if women generally had not been naturally capable of
feeding their children there would be no human race at all.
There can be no doubt that breast-feeding establishes an emotional relationship
between the mother and the child, which is missing where the child is artificially
fed. What is more, artificial feeding so often leads to abuse. The temptation to
buy a teat with a large hole in it, or even to make the hole that is already big
artificially large, seems to be one most difficult for women to withstand.
Now it is true that children who are breast-fed sometimes find it difficult to get
their food, and children who are artificially fed with a teat with a small hole, find it,
if not harder, at least hard. But, believe it or not, I am firmly of the opinion that
the child's full character can be altered by making it too easy for it to take its food.
Children who have learned the hard way in the early months of their lives grow
up mentally and morally a lot harder than other children.
Post-Natal Clinic.
It is a curious thing that, although Mary came to us to enquire about ante natal
treatment and John would have taken a pretty poor view if she hadn't come, ind if
we hadn't had something to offer, we definitely had to invite Mary to come to the
post-natal clinic. I believe it would take a whole regiment of psychologi sts to
begin to unravel the workings of a woman's mind to explain why this should be so.
It seems perfectly obvious that a woman who has delivered herself of a baby
should take every step possible after the baby is born to find out that everything is
alright with herself or, alternatively, if everything isn't alright to find out what is
wrong, particularly, of course, having regard to the fact that some time in the future
she may be pregnant again when, of course, any residual disability from her previous
confinement might be quite a serious affair. But sometimes these things which are
so obvious don't always turn out as we expect, and, just as people hesitate to go to
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