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INFANTILE MORTALITY.
It is satisfactory to record a still further decline in the rate of
Infantile Mortality.
The rate (94 per 1,000 births) is not only the lowest experienced
but is less than half of certain rates recorded in the past. I have on
other occasions pointed out that the type of weather experienced
during recent summers has been highly favourable to infant survival.
Until we have again been subject to a hot, dry summer it is difficult to
say to what extent the low infantile mortality is due to increased care
and more intelligent fostering of infants. I shall, therefore, again
reserve my comments upon the ascertained results of health visiting,
so far as infant nurture is concerned, until circumstances justify the
expression of an opinion which has been tested by less favourable
conditions than those prevailing during recent summers. Miss Gaul's
report upon this province of her work I reproduce as heretofore.
BIRTH ENQUIRIES, 1909.
"Enquiries into the conditions under which infants are reared have
been continued during the year 1909.
Some 1,300 houses from which births have been notified were visited
during the year, and a large number of these were revisited once or
more as may have been deemed necessary.
The visitors are well received, and usually expected. The mothers
generally appreciate the interest taken in the babies, and are glad of
advice on many points.
There is a steady increase in the numbers of infants who sleep in
separate cots or cradles. Unfortunately, however, the figures fall
during the winter months. This is owing to the lack of sufficient
warm bed covering in many cases; but also, and perhaps more
frequently, to the idea which many mothers have that the babies
cannot be kept warm in winter except in the mother's arms, and that
the mother's bed is the natural place for a baby to sleep in.