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23
Regular visits at intervals of one to three months,
according to circumstances, were made between the ages of
one to five years.
Every effort was made to find children who had entered
the Borough since their birth and regular visits were also
made to those cases.
The following was the total number of visits made during
1948 and preceding years:-

Rough Graph No. 4 shows the volume of work of home visiting
by Health Visitors, first visits to new babies (left hand scale)
and total visits annually to infants under one year (right hand
scale). Other visits to children from 1 to 5 years are also
shown. First visits to new infants are probably the most
useful work done from the department. This is the time when
appropriate help and advice is brought to young mothers when
they need it. Those visits, together with the attendances of
the mothers with their infants at the welfare clinics represent
a vital part of infant welfare which has steadily increased in
volume during the last ten years. It is noticeable that there
is good cover for the 1 - 5's also. This effective day to day
work all the year round, by the Health Visitors is worthy of
high commendation and the Council has been well served by their
Senior Health Visitor and her colleagues.
The importance of good health visiting can hardly be overestimated
and it is worthy of note that there are authorities
today who claim that the infantile mortality rate is lowered
in direct proporation to the number of health visitors at work
in the area. This influence can be seen in different countries
and in different parts of England and Wales. On the Continent
also it would seem significant that countries with a good health
visiting and welfare organisation have low infant mortality
rates.