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6
INFANTILE MORTALITY.
The number of deaths of children under 12 months was 26,
which gives an Infantile Mortality Rate of 31 per 1,000 live births.
This rate compares very favourably with that for the previous year,
which was 41, and is the same as that for 1941, the lowest ever
recorded in Wood Green.
Of the total of 26 infantile deaths, no fewer than 10 occurred
within 24 hours of birth, and 18 occurred during the first month of
life. Of the 10 occurring during the first 24 hours, 7 were certified
as premature, and it is obvious that it is in the direction of
reducing the number of deaths of premature children that our chief
hope of reducing the Infantile Death Rate still further lies.
Early in the year the Ministry of Health issued Circular 20/44,
giving advice to Welfare Authorities on steps to be taken to provide
special care for premature infants, and acting on this advice
special equipment has been obtained, comprising special draughtproof
cot, electric blanket-pad. hot water bottles, special feeding
bottles, etc., and is available for issue where the premature baby
and mother are nursed at home.
MATERNAL MORTALITY.
Two deaths occurred following1 childbirth, one due to puerperal
sepsis and the other to toxaemia. The Maternal Mortality Rate was
2.4 per 1,000 births, practically the same as that for 1943, which
was 2.6.
MATERNITY AND CHILD WELFARE.
The number of live births registered as belonging to Wood
Green was 824. Of these the number actually occurring in the
Borough was 294, and in 253 of these cases the mother was attended
in her confinement by one or other of the Council's midwives.
Almost 65 per cent. of the births belonging to Wood Green took
place outside the district, many of them in hospitals or nursing
homes in reception areas to which mothers were sent under the
Government exacuation scheme. The number of births notified was
742, 90 per cent. of all the births registered.