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Distribution of Dried Milk to Nursing and Expectant Mothers
and to Children under 3 years of age during 1932.
During the year 1932 this scheme has been satisfactorily carried
out and fully appreciated by the mothers in the Borough, as
is evidenced by the fact that 102 tons, 5 cwt., 43 lbs. of Fullcream
Dried Milk were distributed in 1 lb. grease-proof bags
enclosed in carton packets, with printed directions clearly set out
as to use. These have been distributed to eligible persons residing
in the Borough from the undermentioned Centres:—
84 West Ham Lane, Stratford.
Public Hall, Barking Road, Canning Town.
Nurses' Home, Howards Road, Plaistow.
Maternity Centre, Barnwood Road, Silvertown.
The milk powder is received in bulk in hermetically sealed
canisters, is packed by the Council's own staff, and only the estimated
required quantity is weighed up daily so as to ensure the
milk being fresh when supplied to applicants. Samples from each
consignment have been submitted for chemical analysis and
bacteriological examination with satisfactory result.
There is a strong but entirely erroneous impression amongst
many people, including members of the medical profession, that
the use of dried milk for infant feeding and in the diet of young
children will produce Rickets.
One is impressed, after working over a period of several years
at the Infant Welfare Centres in the Borough, by the comparative
rarity of Rickets amongst a child population reared, as it
were, on Full-cream Dried Milk. Breast feeding is encouraged,
and the mother is given additional food in the form of Dried Milk
in order that she may be able to feed her baby. But, where natural
feeding is not possible, or later when the infant is weaned, Fullcream
Dried Milk is almost universally employed with entirely
satisfactory and gratifying results. Directions are printed on the
cartons distributed from the Centre which point out, amongst
other things, the fact that the child should have various vitamines
added in the form of a cod liver oil preparation and fresh fruit
juices. Through the Infant Welfare Centres it is possible for all
mothers to obtain, at a very cheap rate, cod liver oil preparations
or emulsions containing a standardised Vitamin-D content. The
home conditions in many districts of this Borough provide no
means of keeping clean and wholesome a supply of fresh cow's
milk. The risk of contamination of fresh milk in the homes is so
great that it is surely wiser to provide a child with a milk slightly
deficient in certain vitamins but clean bacteriologically, than to
give a milk which, becoming easily contaminated, will cause
enteritis and other gastro-intestinal troubles, and may expose
the child to the grave risk of introducing the tubercle bacillus into
his system.
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