View report page

36
These figures must at once dissipate the doubts of those
well-meaning critics who regard the Infant Welfare work as an
infringement of the rights of parents and a species of grandmotherly
interference.
If the figures mean anything, it is that mothers are desirous
of being instructed in the feeding and care of their babies, and are
even willing to receive such instruction from the Borough Council's
officials.
Indeed, the Centres are becoming so popular and the
attendances so numerous as sometimes to embarrass the doctor
and Health Visitors in attendance.
Home Visitation.
These visits begin as stated above, soon after the doctor
or midwife has left their patient. In addition to attending at the
Centres once a week and assisting the Medical Officers in attendance,
the Health Visitors, on the instruction of the Medical Officer
of Health, visit the homes of nursing mothers, advise them to bring
their infants to the Centre, urge them to carry out any instructions
of the doctor and note any condition in the house adverse to the
health of the occupants.
With respect to the number of home visits to be paid by the
Health Visitor to each infant, the Board's Medical Officer remarks
as follows:— "The experience of industrial towns and districts
indicate that about eight visits are required on an average during
the first year after birth for each infant born. Some infants will
require a larger number of visits, and some less or none."
"The average daily number of visits that can be made by a
Health Visitor may be placed at 15. Thus, as a rule, one Health
Visitor should be allowed for not more than 500 births, on the
assumption that the whole of her time is devoted to this work."
"The visits should be continued at intervals up to school age,
attendances at the Centre being encouraged for purposes of medical