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Notification of a child "at risk" is made by the doctor, health visitor, or
midwife concerned and 777 such notifications were received during the year. Six
hundred and twenty-eight children were removed from the register in 1968, leaving
a total of 1,203 children on the register at the end of the year.
Of 397 children on the register who had hearing tests, six appeared to have
some hearing loss. Three of these children are still under the observation of the
medical officer at the Child Health Centre and the other three children were referred
to Tottenham Audiology Unit. One of these children was found to have normal
hearing and discharged from the Unit, and two are still under observation by the
consultant of the unit.
In addition, one child on the register, under the care of a consultant at a local
hospital, was referred to the Audiology Unit because of a suspicion of hearing loss.
Serious deafness was excluded but the child is still under observation.
During 1968, 60 children were reported to be suffering from congenital
abnormalities, and at the end of the year there were 81 children in the section of
the register dealing with handicapped children.
Incidence of Congenital Abnormalities Detectable at Birth
Babies, live and stillborn, 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 66 for the year, was made to the
Registrar General.
The national figures may, in due course, 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 the
assistant medical officers of this borough continued to take part in the survey during
1968. A complete medical and family history is obtained from the parents of
children who have died of a 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.
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