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The Ante-Natal Clinic.
One of the most important and pressing questions before those
interested in the health of the nation at the present moment is
that of the protection and care of the expectant mother. While
the death-rate among children during the first year of life as a
whole has dropped enormously during the last twenty years, the
death-rate of the infant during the first four weeks of life remains
but slightly altered. Also, the Maternal Mortality Rate is
stationary. It is believed that an extension of careful supervision of
expectant mothers during the last months of pregnancy will furnish
at least some part of the remedy. A large proportion of those who
die as a result of childbirth, or whose babies die during the first
weeks of life, are found to have had no Ante-natal care or supervision
whatever, and many such have only sent for a doctor or
midwife at the last moment.
The aims of the Ante-natal Clinic are to provide for the care
and examination of the expectant mother; to maintain, or improve,
the health of the mother, and so to increase the probabilities of
the arrival of a healthy child; and, by anticipation of possible
difficulties in the labour, to prevent avoidable calamity at the confinement
itself, and secure a safe ending to it for both mother and
child.
An Ante-natal Clinic is held at :—
White House, Plashet Grove, on Friday, at 10 a.m.
The Health Visitors follow up in their homes cases of expectant
mothers where this appears desirable.