View report page

85
I find that the opportunity to see the mothers and weigh the
babies at the Depot at regular intervals is a most valuable
adjunct to the work of visiting the infants at home. For one
thing it saves much visiting, and is therefore an economy in
time. For another, although the actual weighing is but a
rough test of the child's well-being, it enables one to watch its
general condition, and to give instructions to the mother in the
way she assimilates it best, namely, by degrees, and as the
child grows and develops. An invitation to mothers to bring
their babies to be weighed is printed on the card of instructions
on infant rearing which is sent by post to every home in the
Borough where a birth is notified. The Matron of the Home
for Mothers and Babies also urges her patients to bring their
babies for weighing. I think there is a great deal to be hoped
for from the development of this side of the work, and from the
fact that the women are in increasing numbers coming to ask
for instruction, realising that they need it, instead of being
content to passively submit to knowledge being carried to
their doors.
It is frequently necessary to urge a mother to get medical
advice for her baby, but never in any circumstances is a doctor's
advice interfered with. It may be necessary to show her how
to carry out the doctor's instructions, and it is very often
necessary to urge her to perseverance and regularity in carrying
out his recommendations.
It is not possible in this, the educational side of sanitary
work, to tabulate results, as may be done in the more purely
administrative branches, but there are not lacking signs that
the work done is bearing fruit. I should like to be able to devote
still more time to re-visiting in those homes where apathy,
dirt, and disorder, reign. The women are visited as often as
as possible, but they need the perpetual encouragement which
only personal influence, repeated at very frequent intervals,