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should be admitted with the mother and this is arranged when possible.
It is especially necessary to consider as possibly infectious the
pyrexial puerperal patient in a nursing home, and it is only in those cases
where a consultant has given his opinion as to a non-infectious cause of
pyrexia, that such patients remain in the nursing home. Otherwise, they
are removed, almost invariably, to hospital.
The same conditions apply as to the transfer of notifications of
puerperal pyrexia occurring in a mother confined in a hospital in London
as was the case in notifications of ophthalmia in the infant. A number
of notifications of puerperal pyrexia therefore, relate to mothers confined
in hospitals in London and who have recovered before return to their
homes in this district.
Last year, 22 notifications were received, of which five were in respect
of patients delivered in hospitals in London. In three, the pyrexia
followed an abortion. In five, the raised temperature was due to some
abnormality other than of the birth canal (influenza 1 ; B.coli infection 2;
inflamed breast 1 ; polyp 1). In two cases the placenta had been manually
removed, and in three, a perineal suture had become infected.
Of the patients delivered locally, three were delivered at home, two
in nursing homes. Nine were treated at home, and eight admitted to
hospital. Three cases were treated by the staff of the District Nursing
Association.