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43
MATERNITY SERVICES
ANTE-NATAL SUPERVISION.
Home Visiting.
About one-third of the mothers confined are attended by the
Council's midwives. Health visitors are brought in touch with many
of the remaining two-thirds. The vast majority come to the ante-natal
clinics and on failure to attend are visited. Again, the almoners of
hospitals welcome the health visitor's reports on the home conditions
of patients, to help them to decide whether the home circumstances are
sufficiently serious to necessitate the confinement taking place elsewhere
than at home. During the year the health visitors paid a total
of 1,771 visits to expectant mothers, 1,382 being first visits.
Ante-natal Clinics.
The vast majority of mothers now attend the welfare authority's
ante-natal clinics. Here they are seen by the health visitors, their
problems discussed, and certain clinical examinations made. Periodically
the expectant mother is seen by the medical officer, and in cases of
detection of any abnormality, seen frequently until she is better.
Midwives attend with their own patients, and when circumstances
permit, examine them. Where more than one session is held in any
building, where possible one is held in the afternoon for the midwives'
cases as they are the more likely to be able to attend at that time. In
such circumstances the attendances at the morning sessions are largely
made by the mothers who are to be admitted to a hospital or other
institution for confinement.
An ante-natal clinic session conducted by midwives only and not
by medical officers has been opened at one of the clinic buildings, staffed
by those midwives working in that neighbourhood. It was felt that
holding such a regular session would not be such a tie on each midwife
as her having to be at home some specified time to see her patients ;
while if for any reason such as the midwife being on a case she could
not be present there would be some other midwife available who could
see the patient. The advantages of the arrangement are sufficient to
warrant an extension of the experiment, though to enable it to work
satisfactorily there needs to be a clinic building near to and centrally
situated for a group of midwives.
The following is a summary of the work done at the clinics during
the year:
Total number of expectant mothers attending the
clinics 3,135
Total number of attendances by expectant mothers
at all clinics 15,001
Percentage of total number of births (live and still)
represented by the number of mothers attending
the clinics 80.0