London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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Hendon 1943

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Hendon]

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7.
To meet the demand of the increasing birth rate an additional
midwife was appointed, bringing the total number of Domiciliary Midwives
employed in the Borough to 8,
The following Table gives particulars of the cases attended under
the Council's Domiciliary Midwifery Scheme:-

TABLE VII

DOMICILIARY CONFINEMENTS ATTENDED BY MIDWIVES.

19421943
(a) Employed by the Council:
as Midwives348336
as Maternity Nurses100118
(b) Employed by Voluntary Associations: Under arrangements male with the Local Supervising Authority in pursuance of Section 1 of the Midwives Act, 1936
as Midwives160156
as Maternity Nurses917
617627

I should like here to mention the high standard of domiciliary
midwifery maintained by the Council's Midwives and by those of the Watling
District Nursing Association with whom arrangements were made under the
provisions of the Midwives Act, 1936.
The arrangements whereby women who are accepted for confinement
at the Redhill County Hospital are supervised at the Borough Ante-natal
Clinics continued to operate satisfactorily, and I am indebted to the Obstetric
Surgeon of that hospital for seeing difficult cases found at the Centres, and
for the prompt and effective use of the "Flying Squad" in domiciliary obstetric
difficulties.
It is gratifying to record that the maternal mortality rate continued
to be low. Pour deaths were attributed to conditions associated with childbirth,
giving a maternal mortality rate of 1.76 per thousand births. An analysis of
the deaths however, showed that one, while occurring during confinement, was due
to a condition not associated with pregnancy; one was duo to self-induced
abortion, a third to a concealed pregnancy, no arrangement having been made
by the mother for her confinement, and the fourth was duo to eclampsia — a true