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"At Risk" Register
A register is kept of children who, because of some factor noted either before,
during, or after birth, may be more liable than other children to suffer a mental or
physical abnormality. These children are kept under observation by assistant
medical officers until it is established that development is normal. Children are
usually removed from the register between the ages of two and three years if no
defect has been detected by then.
Notification of a child "at risk" is made by the doctor, health visitor, or
midwife concerned and 488 such notifications were received during the year. Five
hundred and fifty-four children were removed from the register in 1967, leaving a
total of 1,054 children on the register at the end of the year.
Of 319 children on the register who had hearing tests at infant welfare clinics,
only one appeared to have some hearing loss. This child was found to have partial
hearing and arrangements were made for her to be fitted with a hearing aid.
During 1967, 73 children were reported to be suffering from congenital abnormalities,
and at the end of the year there were 71 children in the handicapped
section of the register.
Incidence of Congenital Abnormalities Detectable at Birth
Babies born with a detectable abnormality are notified by the doctor or midwife
in charge of the confinement with details of the abnormality, and a return of these
notifications, amounting to 62 for the year, was made to the Registrar General.
The figures for the country as a whole should, when available, prove a valuable
means of indicating hereditary, geographical, seasonal and other factors hitherto
unknown, which may influence the development of congenital abnormalities.
Survey of Childhood Malignancies
An investigation into the causes of leukaemia and other malignant diseases
in childhood was started in 1955 by Dr. Stewart of the Department of Social Medicine,
Oxford University. Doctors from all over the country have participated and
one assistant medical officer of this borough continued to take part in the survey
during 1967. A complete medical and family history is obtained from the parents
of children who have died of malignant disease, and a similar history is completed
for a series of carefully matched healthy children.
The main result of this survey so far has been to establish a relationship
between diagnostic X-ray procedures on the foetus and the development of
leukaemia in early childhood. The work is continuing and a further report is
expected in due course.
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