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MATERNITY AND CHILD WELFARE.
Public health Act, 1936—Section 203.
The number of births which were notified, as adjusted by transferred
notifications, was as follows:—
Live births 846 Notified by midwives 7*29
Still births 19 Notified by doctors and
parents 35
Transferred notifications 101
865 865
The total is 58 less than in the year before, and represents 103
per cent, of the number of births registered during the year.
Health Visiting.
The staff of Health Visitors was seriously depleted during the
year. The normal establishment of five was reduced to three for
six months, and only in the last quarter was it restored to full
strength. Consequently the scale of visiting was much less than
was desirable. The visits made, excluding those in connection with
the Child Life Protection provisions of the Public Health Act referred
to later in this report, were as follows: —
To expectant mothers—
First visits 90
Total visits 134
To children under 1 year—
First visits 894
Total visits 2,842
To children 1-5 years—
Total visits 4,061
7,037
Clinic Activities.
A full programme of welfare clinics was in operation throughout
the year at the five centres established under the scheme. The
number of sessions averaged 12½ per week. These have since been
increased to 14 by an additional weekly ante-natal session, and a
fortnightly Toddler Clinic at the Rochester Road Centre.
A record number of expectant mothers attended the ante-natal
clinics. New cases totalled 514, whilst those on the register during
the year numbered 620. Never before has this latter figure reached
600. The number of new cases represents an increase of 40 per cent,
over the 1944 figure. A further 60 mothers attended exclusively
the maternity clinic of the St. Helier Hospital, and when these
are taken into account the number of expectant mothers who received
clinic supervision during the year represented 68 per cent, of the
notified births. A high proportion of Carshalton babies are now
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