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40
The class where mothers are least employed is that where all
the children survive, and the family consists of two or three
children. Where two or more children in a family have died,
there a greater proportion of mothers are employed. The mothers
of first-born children are employed to a greater extent than any
of the mothers the whole of whose family are living.
I have pointed out in a previous report that insured babies
die in lesser proportion than those uninsured, and this holds good
of the cases investigated during the year. But it will now be
observed that the greatest proportion of insured babies occurs in
that class where three or more children in a family have died,
while it is least in families of four or more children all of whom
survive. Whether the mother is attended by a doctor or a
midwife at her confinement appears to have no influence upon the
prospects of the infant's surviving, but it is interesting to note
that the proportion of mothers attended by midwives increases
with the number of children they have previously born. It is
also interesting to note that the more children a mother has lost
the more ready is she to promise to improve her methods in the
care of the infant, and that the mothers of first born children
are the least disposed to amend their ways or, at any rate, to
admit that they will. The mothers of first born infants in fact
show up considerably worse than those who having had two or
three children had succeeded in keeping them alive. This is
partly to be accounted for by the fact that the class of mothers of
first children is composed partly of those the whole of whose
children survive and partly of those who subsequently lose their
children. The mothers, moreover, are the youngest of all the
mothers in the different groups.
On the whole the facts approximate to what one familiar with
the conditions of the working and lower middle classes would
expect.