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the national economic position renders it impossible to make adequate
provision for certain other classes of patients such as the chronic sick
and the mentally ill.
A higher proportion of home confinements would help to stress
the fact that childbirth is a physiological process, and also that it is a
family affair. I feel that we tend to overlook the important part the
father should play both during the confinement and the puerperium,
Surely at this supreme moment a woman needs her husband more than
at any other, and with his support would have an easier delivery and
would more readily establish breast feeding.
Maternal Mortality. No maternal deaths occurred during the
year, although a death late in December, 1952, was not registered until
early January and thus appears in the Registrar General's figures
for 1953.
Post-Natal Care. In 1927 only 26 mothers were examined following
their confinements and this figure remained low for many years, despite
the repeated plea of my predecessor.
POST NATAL CLINIC
Number attending for first time 1,016
Total number of attendances 1,244
Whilst there has been a steady improvement so that in 1953
approximately 70% of Barking mothers received a post- natal examination,
the position is still far from satisfactory. It cannlot be too
strongly stressed that a post-natal examination is every bit as important
to the mother as ante-natal care. We must not be satisfied until every
Barking mother receives this examination about 6 weeks following
her confinement.
Gynaecological Clinic. The Specialist Gynaecolo; teal Clime,
started by the Borough Council in 1933, is still held weekly at the Upney
Clinic, and is now attended by Mr. B. G. Spiers, F.R.C.S.
GYNÆCOLOGICAL CLINIC
Number attending for first time 328
Total number of attendances 1,522
of the conditions treated there could have been prevented had adequate
post-natal attention been obtained at the proper time
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