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appoint under their direct control, salaried midwives,
home helps, and a domiciliary service of general
practitioners in each case. Their desire is to provide the
best available attention at the confinement and to relieve
the mother of all anxiety of home care during the lying-in
period, and at the same time to unify the maternity
service and child welfare service. This is a long needed
reform in our services if we are to combat a high maternal
mortality rate of three per 1,000 births, a stillbirth rate of
32 per 1,000 births and a neo-natal rate of 17 per 1,000
births. It is in the reduction of these rates that scope for
work lies waiting—a work which can only be successful
by a unified effort by all associated with the welfare of
the mother and young baby.