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Patients are examined and reported upon to the doctor
or midwife engaged. The Clinic also serves as a school for
expectant mothers, where expert advice on mothercraft can
be given freely. Guidance is given on the hygienic outfit
for the coming child, and the young mother is taught the
fundamentals of baity care. I am confident that the work
of instruction at Ante-Natal Clinics is invaluable, and that
without such provision Ante-Natal care would not be safeguarded.
The foregoing statistical table shows that an increasing
use is being made of the Clinics. One hundred and nineteen
individual mothers attended of whom 35 were referred
to Maternity Hospitals on physical grounds, or because the
home environment did not permit of the possibility of safe
confinement. Fifteen of these cases were financially
assisted to the Maternity Hospital.
Nineteen per cent, of expectant mothers in Bromley
attend the Ante-Natal Clinic, and the remainder are under
the Ante-Natal supervision of the mid-wife, doctor or
maternity nurse.
In addition to the Clinic, home visitation of the expectant
mother is carried out by the health visitors, midwives
and by the district nursing associations. In 1930
the health visitors paid 321 home visits to expectant
mothers, while the nursing associations through their own
midwives paid 970 visits.
Natal Services.
Attendance at Birth.
Six hundred and thirty-one live births and 16 stillbirths
were notified under the Notification of Births Act,
1907. In addition there were 21 "unnotified" births
discovered through the Registrars' returns. The births
occurring in the Borough were notified as follows:—
Notified by midwives 255
Notified by doctors and parents 392
" Un-notified " 21
668