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Less difficulty has been experienced in keeping in touch with the delicate and
wasting babies which have attended on the weighing days. 170 babies were brought,
and there were 520 attendances. The average number attending each week was 15.
Advice is given to the mothers at the Class on feeding and clothing of infants,
also instructions for knitting garments, and paper patterns are distributed as
required. Efforts to improve the clothing have been made in many cases, and
more would be done were it not for want of means to buy new material.
At the end of the year I held a Clothing Competition at which the babies were
to be dressed entirely in wool or flannel made of old or new material. There were
13 entries, and all were so good that a prize was given to each. These were
provided by friends.
There is great need of a source from which mothers may obtain milk, when it
is evident that from lack of means their babies are not maintaining a satisfactory
standard of weight.
Observation goes to prove that not so much the ignorance of the mother as
lack of funds to provide necessary food before and after the child's birth is the
chief contributory cause of Infantile Mortality.
Ophthalmia Neonatorum.
All the 16 certified cases recovered satisfactorily, and none had to be removed.
Puerperal Septicemia.
Five cases were certified Four of these were attended by doctors, removed
to hospitals, and two died. The fifth was a slight case attended by a midwife. It
made a quick recovery.
Summer Diarrhcea.
Some of these cases were sent in by the almoners of various hospitals, and
others were found when visiting.
From May onwards the leaflets provided by the Health Department on
the "Prevention of Summer Diarrhoea" were distributed and explained. Also
at the Weighing Centre I gave short talks to the mothers on the best means for
prevention.