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10
Maternity and Child Welfare Centres.
An additional Infant Welfare Centre has been opened at St.
Michael's Hall, Northwold Road. At Overbury Street Centre a
weekly Ante-natal Clinic is now held, and also an additional Child
Welfare Clinic. There are two sessions a week at May field Road
Centre instead of one. The Voluntary Centres, which are subsidised
by the Borough Council and carry out their work in coordination
with the work of the Maternity and Child Welfare
Committee, in accordance with the Circular M.C.W. 38, of the
Ministry of Health, have also extended their activities ; an Antenatal
Clinic has been opened at Eton Mission Welfare Centre, and
the Hackney Grove Centre has opened a Branch Centre at Ada
Street. In October, 1925, the Lower Clapton Road Centre was
opened by H.R.H. The Duchess of York, and is the first institution
of this description to commence work in the Borough, as it is
equipped to carry on Artificial Light, Dental, Ante-natal, Postnatal
and Child Welfare Clinics, and to serve as a Centre of
Instruction in the prevention of disease.
During the past five years the total number of attendances of
children at the Centres numbered 148,633. Of these, 45,757 were
made by children aged 1 to 5. The primary cases brought to
the Centres numbered 12,642. This figure, allowing for the few
hundred children brought for the first time to the Centres at a
later age than the infant period, compared with the total number
of births—22,461—gives an idea of the importance of these Centres
to the infant life of the Borough.
During the year 1925, the number of attendances of children
at Welfare Centres exceeded those in the year 1920 by 4,000, and
the attendances of mothers at Ante-natal Centres has increased
from 858 to 2,324, the figure for the year 1925.
The work of the new Municipal Centre at 28, Lower Clapton
Road will greatly extend the usefulness of the Maternity and
Child Welfare service in the Borough, and reduce the preventible
infantile mortality and crippling to a greater degree than has