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MEDICAL RESEARCH COUNCIL - UNIT FOR THE STUDY OF ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS IN MENTAL AND
PHYSICAL ILLNESS
The Head of the Unit, Dr.J.W.B.Douglas has kindly given the following report
concerning two studies in Leyton:-
"We have been encouraged by the Co-operation of the health authorities in Leyton
to go ahead with our plans for two related studies. The first study will be concerned
with women expecting their second babies, who already have a toddler, and who are
married and living with their husbands. We are hoping to see two social groups - one
manual and one non-manual, and shall be interested in comparing the everyday patterns
of experience both of the toddlers and of the new babies in these two social groups.
We are concentrating our attention on the amount and kind of handling and of social
contacts, and on the patterns of sleep and play, which these very young children
experience, because there is increasing evidence that these factors are of importance
for both intellectual and emotional development. The women are being contacted through
the ante-natal clinics, general practitioners, midwives and health authorities, cards
being completed and returned to us by the health visitors and midwives for every mother
expecting a second child, so that we may select women who fulfil our sample requirements
for interviewing. We shall be seeing them regularly over an 18 month - 2 year period,
and are concerned to find useful and valid techniques for investigating these problems.
At the same time, for our second study, the health visitors have been selecting
women from their list whom they suspect fulfil our requirements for a study of obsessionality.
Certain of these women are being interviewed in an attempt to work out
symptoms, and assess how patterns of obsessional behaviour may affect their family lives.
Where there are young children, they can be compared with 'normal' families included
in the first study. We have now begun to interview the first families for both studies."
CLINICAL TRIAL
During the year the medical officers at infant welfare clinics have been co-operating
with Dr.Hinden, the consultant paediatrician at Whipps Cross in a clinical trial. The
substance being tried is Polymethylsiloxane which may be a cure for wind in babies. The
trial is still in progress.
SECTION 23 - MIDWIFERY

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