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

Hackney 1944

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Hackney]

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14
INFANTILE MORTALITY.
The deaths of 126 children under the age of twelve months were
allocated to Hackney by the Registrar-General during 1944. This
number of deaths gives an infantile mortality rate of 48.78 per 1,000
live births, the rate for England and Wales being 46 and for London
61.
A review of the infantile mortality statistics of the Borough
during the past hundred years shows the following interesting
facts:—
(a) It was not until 1910 that an infantile death rate of less
than 100 per thousand births was recorded;
(b) The worst year was 1899 when of every thousand children
born no less than 165 died before reaching their first
birthday;
(c) The year 1918, during which the Maternity and Child
Welfare Act was passed into law, was the last occasion on
which the infantile mortality rate exceeded 100 per
thousand births. The rate for that year was 111.
The rate in 1920 was 80.7, in 1938 it was 56.4 and in 1944 it
was only 48.7.

Table: The causes of the 126 infant deaths in 1944 are set out in the following table:—

The causes of the 126 infant deaths in 1944 are set out in the following table:—

Cause of Death.Under 24 hrs.1 day to 1 week.1-2 weeks.2-3 weeks.3-4 weeks.Total under 4 weeks.1-3 months.3-6 months.6-9 months.9-12 months.Total
Bronchitis............122..5
Cerebro-spinal fever..................11
Congenital defects87411215..2..28
Diarrhoea............6107326
Digestive diseases............21....3
Pneumonia..124..7541118
Prematurity1310..2..252......27
Tuberculosis—Pulmonary......................
,, Non-Pulmonary......................
Violence11......2..1l26
Whooping cough............22l27
Other causes1......12..12..5
Totals2319672572321169126

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MATERNAL MORTALITY.
During 1944 there was 1 death from Puerperal Sepsis and this
was the only death from a cause directly connected with childbirth.
This death represents a death-rate of 0.37 per 1,000 total births as
compared with a rate for England and Wales of 1.93.
In 1920 the number of Hackney women who died in childbirth
was 18, the maternal mortality rate being 2.9 per 1,000 total
births. In 1938, and again in 1944, only one woman died from
this cause, the mortality rate for the two years being 0.35 and 0.37
respectively.