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41
employed for ante-natal work. The Infant, Life Protection Visitor
also acts as a relief Health Visitor. Two of the three voluntary
associations providing in the Borough Infant Welfare Centres also
employ Health Visitors, who carry out the health visiting work in
the areas served by those Centres.
Approximately two.thirds of the time of the Borough Council's
Health Visitors is spent in visiting the homes of expectant and
nursing mothers, and children under the age of five years, the
remainder of their time being devoted to attendance at Ante.Natal
and Infant Welfare Centres.
Visits are paid as required to all expectant mothers, of whom
knowledge is received either through midwives, Ante.Natal Clinics
or other means. There is a scheme of co.operation between the
Borough Council and the London County Council under which
mothers who attend at the Ante.Natal Clinic established at the
Hackney Hospital are notified to the Public Health Department in
order that the Borough Council's Health Visitors might visit the
homes. Women who lapse in their attendance at the Clinic are also
notified to the Public Health Department for the further attention
of the Health Visitors.
The Health Visitors also visit the homes of all infants notified
under the Notification of Births Act, 1907. The first visit is paid
as soon as possible after the infant reaches the age of fourteen days.
Three further routine visits are paid during the first year of life,
and two visits are paid in each subsequent year until the child reaches
the age of five years. Additional visits are paid as required to
infants and children suffering from ophthalmia neonatorum,
measles, whooping cough, etc. It may be said, therefore, that the
Borough is adequately served as regards health visiting.
A table showing the visits made by the Health Visitors and
the attendances of these officers at the Infant Welfare Centres and
other clinics during the year appears on pages 42 and 43.