View report page

81
Mrs. X., living in one large room, very nicely kept, had, at the time of the
first visit, two young children, besides an infant aged 3 weeks. The eldest
child (aged 3½) had been "always ailing" ; the second child (aged 15 months)
had ricketts. and could not walk. Both were said to have been healthy at
birth, and to have made good progress for 3 months, when artificial feeding
began, and wasting supervened. As the mother appeared to have been ignorant,
rather than neglectful, and seemed teachable, I gave her careful instructions,
and decided to revisit. This I did weekly for about 8 weeks, then fortnightly,
and afterwards monthly ; when I last saw the child (at ten months old), it was
in a normal state of health.
It is unwise to predict what would have happened, but it seems probable that
the third child would have suffered in the same way as the other two, if the mother
had not received some advice.
Regular visiting has also good effects on the promotion of cleanliness ; many
people who have grown accustomed to having their homes dirty and untidy, will
in response to an outsider's interest in them, make an effort to have their home as
nice as possible, when they expect a visitor who has a higher standard than their
own.
Number of Deaths
The number of deaths among the 884 infants visited was 39, which gives a
mortality rate of 43.11 per 1,000 births.
Of these deaths 16 were due to "wasting" diseases ; 10 to diseases of the respiratory
tract; 1 to heart disease ; 1 to congenital malformation of heart; 1 to cerebrospinal
fever ; 9 to summer diarrhoea.
Wasting.
Of the 16 dying from "wasting" diseases, 11 were apparently healthy at birth,
but began to " waste " soon after, despite all efforts made to save them.
In some cases the environment was fairly satisfactory but apparently the infants
health was undermined by adverse influences brought to bear on it, during
ante-natal existence.
(I) Due to ante-natal conditions.
I have chosen the following as an example of the loss of infant life, apparently
due to adverse ante-natal conditions rather than to any want of, or misdirected
care after birth.
This child's father, a builder's labourer, was apparently quite well so long as
he was able to earn enough to get sufficient food The mother, who had suffered
very much from anaemia for a long while during her girlhood was a machinist. One
r