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48
Progress made by Children attending Day Nurseries.
Recently there has been much controversy regarding the progress
made by children attending day nurseries. There are
those who state that children attending day nurseries make
better progress than children cared for at home. On the
other hand, there is a growing body of medical opinion which
considers that children (especially those under two years of
age) make much better progress at home, where they are not
exposed to infectious disease in massive doses at so early an
age. Unfortunately, the amount of evidence adduced so far
is surprisingly small, and most of it is far from being of much
scientific value.
The only satisfactory way to conduct a proper investigation
of this kind would be for accurate records to be kept of—
(a) a number of children attending a day nursery, and
(b) an equal number of comparative children kept at
home ;
and, in order to narrow the margin of error as much as possible,
it would be necessary for the same observers to investigate the
progress of as many children as possible in each group over as
long a period as possible.
Unfortunately, war-time day nurseries were established
when the depleted staffs of health departments were fully
occupied in endeavouring to carry out the many extra duties
connected with the war effort, and there is no record of any
investigation on these lines having been carried out.
Although a trained observer can form a reliable estimate
of the nourishment or malnourishment of a child in many
ways, such findings are never more than expression of opinion ;
and the only "yardstick" available at the present time for
the assessment of health in young' children is gain in weight.
In order that your Committee should have at your disposal
all availabe information before you decide on the categories
of children to be admitted to your day nurseries after 1st April
next I have asked Dr. Menzies to submit her observations.
Report of Dr. Menzies.
The most striking fact has been the rapid turn-over of
children. In theory one would have expected that with certain
exceptions (e.g. the mother becoming pregnant) a child admitted