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181
Table LXXXIX is intended to show the deaths of babies who
at one time or another during their first year attended a clinic, as
compared with deaths among those who never attended. If a
baby only attended once it is included in the clinic returns:—

2,278 babies under one year of age attended the clinics during
1932. Within the same period 3,311 babies were born and 161
died; 37 of these latter are not included in the above table as
information concerning them was not obtainable. Although the
clinic attendance figures and the births and deaths figures do not
cover exactly the same periods, the attendances of new cases at the
clinics do not fluctuate so greatly as to cause serious error. Of the
124 babies who died, 22 had attended a clinic in Croydon and 102
had not attended, i.e., 18% of the deaths were in clinic babies and
82% in non-clinic babies. Of the 3,311 babies born, approximately
69% attended or would attend on calculation based on past attendances.
The infantile mortality, estimated on this basis is only 9.6
per 1,000 births for the "clinic" babies, and 99.3 per 1,000 births
for non-clinic babies.
The following table is interesting, especially when the figures
for under 1 year are contrasted with those for over 1 year. Approximately
86% of the former group of babies were found healthy on
their first visit and were presumably brought because their mothers
desired expert opinion and advice quite apart from treatment; in
the latter group, however, only 73% were found healthy on the first
visit, which may be interpreted to mean when a mother first attends
a clinic with a child over a year old she does so because progress is
not satisfactory 70% of babies under 1 year were being breast fed
at their first visit, this figure being more than 1931 (67), 42.9% of
the ailing babies were suffering from digestive troubles, 11.6%
from respiratory trouble and 6.8% from rickets.