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Table IV illustrates that no fewer that 33 of these 44
children were admitted to hospitals or institutions, and that
their urgent condition was therefore well recognised and dealt
with by the respective services concerned.

In all 23 of the children died outside the borough. I think
the answer to this problem lies first in the large percentage
(59 per cent.) of neo-natal deaths, and can be elucidated from
Tables II and III. The figures for Premature births and
Developmental conditions in Table II are high as compared
with previous years, and these are causes which are "less
amenable to those influences which have led to so marked a
reduction in the infant death rate as a whole."
The year 1944 was notable in this district for a considerable
degree of enemy activity spread throughout the twelve months.
There is a record of some 494 siren warnings alone. I venture
to submit that while these may or may not have had an influence
on the high number of developmental conditions recorded—
and it must be remembered that birth injuries are included under
the heading of developmental conditions—the large number
of infantile deaths in the neo-natal period associated with
premature births must have been influenced by this set of
conditions.