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Research
Participation by medical staff at certain ante-natal clinics in the research
project sponsored by Dr. A. G. Mezey, Consultant Psychiatrist, North Middlesex
Hospital, with the object of finding out if the mental breakdown which occasionally
occurs after childbirth could be anticipated during pregnancy with a view to preventive
treatment, continued throughout the year.
Medical staff also took part in another project, a survey of children with spina
bifida, which was initiated by the Research and Intelligence Unit of the Greater
London Council. Modern treatment of this congenital abnormality has resulted in
many children surviving with varying degrees of handicap and the project is
intended to discover more about the numbers of such children and about the
severity of their handicap, in order that plans can be made for their future needs.
During 1967 the Health Department co-operated with the Medical Research
Council in obtaining volunteer mothers in the borough to take part in a research
project investigating the activities of mothers of young children. The heart rate
of each mother was to be measured throughout one day and night, during which
she undertook her usual activities, and this was to be done by fitting her beforehand
with a "Socially Acceptable Monitoring Instrument". The results of the
investigation are not yet available.
(See Statistical Tables 10,11 and 12)
MIDWIFERY
Under Section 23 of the National Health Service Act, 1946, it is the duty of
every local health authority to provide a domiciliary midwifery service. The local
health authority is also the local supervising authority for the purposes of the
Mid wives Act, 1951.
Domiciliary midwives attended 1,072 confinements during the year and also
undertook the care of 418 patients discharged home after hospital confinement
before the 10th day. The latter figure consists mainly of those cared for under the
council's planned early discharge scheme. Also included in this figure are those
who took their own early discharge from hospital and some who were booked for
a home confinement but had to be admitted to hospital as an emergency.
A new booklet entitled The Baby Book, which gives information regarding
health during pregnancy and advice on rearing young children, is issued to each
expectant mother when she books a midwife for a domiciliary confinement. Expectant
mothers who are booked for a hospital confinement normally receive a similar
book when attending the hospital for ante-natal purposes. All patients under the
care of a domiciliary midwife are issued with a maternity pack shortly before the
expected date of confinement.
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