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31
CARE OF MOTHERS AND YOUNG CHILDREN
Under Section 22 of the National Health Service Act, 1946.
it is the duty of every Local Health Authority to make arrangements
for the care, including in particular, dental care of expectant
and nursing mothers and of children who have not attained the
age of five years and are not attending primary schools maintained
by a Local Education Authority.
Care of the Unmarried Mother and her child
There is one Home for unmarried mothers within the Borough,
which is maintained by the Rochester Diocesan Council for Social
Work. This Home has accommodation for up to fourteen expectant
and nursing mothers and is used by several local authorities.
During the year the Council accepted financial responsibility
for the maintenance of 43 unmarried mothers at various Mother
and Baby Homes.
Costs at these Homes continue to rise, though generally the
increase is not as high as in previous years.
Financial assistance on a per-capita grant of £4 2s. Od. per
case has also been made to two Moral Welfare Associations, who
report they have dealt with 182 cases during the period of this
review.
Welfare Foods
All child welfare clinics sell Welfare Foods in addition to a
range of Proprietary Baby Foods. Sales for the year were:—
10,775 tins of National Dried Milk
4,007 bottles of Cod Liver Oil
6,459 packets of Vitamin tablets
132,313 bottles of Orange Juice
Proprietary foods to the value of £16,288 6s. l0d. were sold
during the same period.
Birth notifications
Of the 5,866 births notified, 4,940 occurred in hospitals and
926 were domiciliary births.
Day Nurseries
Every effort is made to ensure that all day nurseries registered
with this authority maintain suitable standards.
Consistent with the national trend, the number of day nursery
places continues to increase.
Number of registered Day Nurseries 65(54)
Number of places provided 2,099(1,395)
(Figures in parenthesis represent 1966)
There are no day nurseries maintained by the Council.