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
Merton and Morden 1945
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Merton & Morden]
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The appended table sets out the comparison for the past five years of the local infant mortality rate with that for England and Wales. It will be seen that the local rate is consistently very considerably below that for the whole country; in the last two years approximately half.
| England and Wales. | Merton and Morden. | |
|---|---|---|
| 1941 | 59 | 42.5 |
| 1942 | 49 | 33.9 |
| 1943 | 49 | 23.5 |
| 1944 | 46 | 28.7 |
| 1945 | 46 | 33.1 |
The number of illegitimate births has increased again for
the year and was 65 against 49 in the year before. It is to be
hoped that this will be the last year of conditions conducive to
this result and that next year we shall see a return to normal
figures.
As it has been pointed out before, there is a relatively high
mortality rate among these infants, 95 per 1,000 births as compared
with 29 per 1,000 for legitimate births. This higher
mortality rate can probably also be regarded as a reasonably
accurate index of the relative care bestowed on the two
categories.
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