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9
INFANT MORTALITY
In 1972, 81 children died in the first year of life—47 in the first week and another 9 in the first month.
There was a decrease in the infant mortality rate compared with 1971 from 20.9 per 1,000 live births to 18.0
which was slightly above the provisional figure for England and Wales (17.0). The perinatal mortality (stillbirths
and deaths under one week combined, per 1,000 live and stillbirths) also decreased from 25.0 to 20.9,
below the provisional figure for England and Wales which was 22.0.
Causes of Death (Table 3)
The main causes of infant mortality were birth injury, difficult labour and other anoxic and hypoxic
conditions. Twenty-five babies died in the first week of life and one in the second.
Twelve babies died of other perinatal causes, 11 of these deaths being due to prematurity.
Pneumonia and other diseases of the respiratory system caused 11 deaths.
There were 3 deaths from enteritis and other diarrhoeal diseases. There is no doubt that the valuable
educational work done by the health visitors has contributed to this low death rate.
There were 19 deaths from congenital anomalies, one from infective and parasitic diseases, one from
anaemia, one from meningitis, one from diseases of the nervous system, one from diseases of the genito-urinary
system, four from symptoms and ill-defined conditions, and one from an accident (shock due to burns).

PREVALENCE AND CONTROL OF INFECTIOUS AND OTHER DISEASES
Improved housing conditions and general standard of living, together with modern medicine and
vaccines have played an important part towards better health and reduction in the number of cases of notifiable
disease in the Borough. Health Visitors and Public Health Inspectors play an invaluable role in health
education and improving hygiene, and where a disease has been notified, prompt action and advice has no
doubt prevented it from becoming widespread.
A summary of notified and confirmed cases for 1972 and 1971 is shown in Table 4.