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45
MATERNITY AND CHILD WELFARE
The work carried out during 1936 under the Council's maternity
and child welfare scheme can conveniently be reported upon under
the following headings:—
(a) Infant welfare, ante-natal, post-natal, artificial light
and dental clinics, and day nursery.
(b) Health visiting.
(c) Provision of maternity hospital accommodation, midwives
and midwifery assistance, arrangements for
investigation of maternal deaths and cases of puerperal
fever and puerperal pyrexia, consultants for difficult
maternity cases, homes for mothers and children, home
helps and nursing assistance.
(d) Provision of milk and other foods to necessitous
mothers and children.
(e) Infant life protection.
INFANT WELFARE, ANTE-NATAL, POST-NATAL,
ARTIFICIAL SUNLIGHT AND DENTAL CLINICS,
AND DAY NURSERY.
The Maternity and Child Welfare Committee of the Council
gave considerable attention during 1936 to the need for improved
facilities for carrying on the maternity and child welfare work of
the Borough. As I have stated in previous reports, four of the
five municipal maternity and child welfare centres are established
in Church Halls, the only Centre carried on in premises adapted
and used exclusively for maternity and child welfare being that at
No. 28, Lower Clapton Road. The hired halls are used as maternity
and child welfare centres on one or two days a week and during
the rest of the week for various parochial activities, and their use
by the Council in common with other organisations has tended to
limit the scope of the Council's work. For example, it has not
been possible because of lack of space to install more than the barest
necessities in the way of equipment for ante-natal and infant
welfare consultations and it has not been possible to carry on in any
of these premises the various ancillary services such as dental and
artificial light treatment or to institute post-natal or toddlers'
sessions. It has, therefore, been necessary to carry out all dental
and sunlight treatment at the Centre at No. 28, Lower Clapton