London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972
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Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
West Ham 1933
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for West Ham]
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MATERNITY AND CHILD WELFARE.
The Senior Medical Officer (Dr. Helen Campbell) reports:—
Notification of Births.
The birth rate for 1933 was 15.5, being a decrease of 1.7
compared with that rate for 1932.
| Births notified by doctors and parents | 967 |
| Births notified by midwives | 4868 |
Number of Births in the Borough in the last five years (net number of births of West Ham Residents):
| 1929 | 1930 | 1931 | 1932 | 1933 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5766 | 5606 | 5266 | 4980 | 4406 |
Health Visiting.
The Council employs eighteen full-time Health Visitors who
undertake the routine home visiting of mothers and young
children: by arrangement between the Medical Officer of Health's
Department and the Committee of the Plaistow Maternity
Hospital the majority of those children, born in that hospital or
attended at birth by nurses from that Association, arc visited
until 4 years of age by the nurses from that Association: at present
there are thirty-four such nurses employed in health visiting. In
addition home visiting is carried out in special cases attending
the Clinics by the Superintendent Nurses of the various voluntary
centres in the Borough.
There has been no alteration in the routine visiting of infants
and children up to school age: from birth until 2 years the child
is visited at least once a quarter, thereafter until it goes to school,
at intervals of six months. Premature and weakly infants are
visited monthly or oftener according to the condition of the child.
In addition, the Municipal Health Visitors undertake all the duties
of Infant life Protection Visitors under the Children and Young
Persons' Act, 1932 and 1933; and in addition investigate all
deaths of infants and young children, stillbirths, and cases of
puerperal pyrexia or fever, ophthalmia and pemphigus neonatorum.
Many visits are paid to the homes of expectant mothers, who
arc thereby brought into touch with the several sources by which
they can obtain help, viz. antenatal supervision at Clinics, including
Dental treatment, Home Help Scheme, the provision of dried
milk at and after six months of pregnancy, hospital facilities for
confinement
A summary card of each child is passed over to the School
Medical Officer immediately the child attends school (including
attendance at the Council's two Nursery Schools). This card
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