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58
The number of Council midwlves was increased from four to five in 1954,
in order to deal with the additional deliveries which fell to this service by
the closure of the Plaistow Maternity Hospital District Home in Burges Road.
So that, in practice, the Council's midwlves undertake all the domiciliary
midwifery in the borough, excluding that small portion south of the Royal
Docks served by the midwoves of the Silvertown & North Woolwich District
Nursing Association.
This valuable asset to the social life of the borough receives considerable
support from the local general practitioners who should play an increasing
part in domiciliary midwifery.
With the return to better housing conditions for a fraction of the public
who were denied good domestic living conditions by the destruction caused by
enemy bombing, there is little reason to swell the number of women referred
to hospital for confinement.
Having a baby is a natural event which should take place in a natural
environment,, the home. The highly artificial surroundings of the hospital
necessary for their specific function, are not conducive to good beginnings
in infant nurture, and It is an undoubted fact that many problems spring from
the awkward transition from hospital regime to home conditions, with the concomitant
lack of progressive orderly usage and habit which may have suited
mother and child (or the doctors and nurses) well In hospital, but are not so
well adapted to the home environment.
The Regional Hospital Boards are well acquainted with these problems and
have urged on hospitals and general practitioners the necessity for reserving
hospital confinement for those cases where the need - social, medical or
obstetric - Is clear.
Under all other circumstances the general practitioners are earnestly
adjured to assist the Medical Officer of Health to ensure that babies are
born at home and given the best chance of uninterrupted nurture in infancy.