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4
INTRODUCTION.
Medical Officer's Department,
Town Hall, Tottenham, N. 15.
April, 1924.
To the Chairman and other Members of
The Maternity and Child Welfare Committee.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is gratifying to report that the Infant Mortality during 1923
was the lowest yet recorded, namely 58'1 per 1,000 births. Of the 180
deaths 91 occurred within the first month and may be considered as due
to prenatal conditions operating after birth. Puerperal fever and other
accidents of pregnancy accounted for 7 deaths of mothers. The means
available for avoiding these neo-natal and maternal deaths, namely the
ante-natal clinic and the District Maternity Home are not taken advantage
of to the extent that they ought. It appears to me that it will be
from the fuller use of these provisions that improvement in the infant
and maternity mortality rate may be anticipated. My conviction is that
every primiparous woman, at least, ought to seek the advantages that a
maternal hospital confers. Too often the health of the woman is prejudiced
by hasty delivery resulting from the clamour of the patient or her
relatives. Natural processes are not permitted to operate and the mother
suffers from the effects of precipitancy for the rest of her days.
The remedy is institutional treatment, where everything necessary is
available and surgical cleanliness is observed ; the patient is away from
her domestic anxieties and there is no sympathetic interference with the
practitioner's judgment.
It will be noted that 80°/o of the infants under the supervision of
the health visitors were Breast fed for six months or over. This is a