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38
I have been in charge of the ante-natal clinics in Leyton for
the last twenty years and have supervised the work of the domiciliary
midwives for most of that time. I am therefore interested
to find whether there has been a disproportionate mortality among
the women for whose ante-natal supervision I have been partly
or wholly responsible.

Table 2 gives the registered live births for the years 1936-1947
(inclusive). It shows the place of birth and the number who
received ante-natal supervision at the municipal ante-natal clinics.
Over these twelve years the proportion attending the clinics was
one-third of the births. The increase of the births in one year by
50 per cent. in 1946 put a great strain on all the services concerned
with the care of mothers and children. The domiciliary births
were nearly doubled in one year, while there was an increase of over
400 in the hospital births and of 250 in the number of mothers
attending the municipal ante-natal clinics. The sudden drop in
the chinic attendances in 1947 while the total births in the area
increased by 136, was due to the co-operation of a neighbouring
voluntary hospital. This hospital very kindly put twelve beds per
month at my disposal in addition to the cases they booked directly.
I was therefore able to refer to this hospital another 144 women
who, for one reason or another, required hospital confinement,
and they received their ante-natal supervision at the hospital
instead of through my chinic.