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38
Each Health Visitor has one-seventh of the
Borough as her area, and the work is directed from
the Town Hall. The whole department is controlled
by the provisions of the Maternity and Child Welfare
Act, 1918, and a large proportion of the work of the
Health Visitors is directly dependent on the Notification
of Births Act, 1907, as through notifications
made under the provisions of that Act information
is received of births occurring within the Borough.
The Health Visitor calls as soon as the period of
attendance by the doctor or midwife has ended, i.e.,
eleven days after the birth of the child. This is
done in all cases whether the child was born in an
institution or at home.
The Health Visitors teach the mothers how best to
maintain breast-feeding, and give advice on the
general management of the child : in fact, any matter
which has any bearing on the health and happiness
of the parents or children is the concern of the Health
Visitor. They encourage mothers to attend the Infant
Welfare Centres for regular advice and medical inspection,
and the attendance or otherwise of a mother at
the Centre depends almost always directly upon the
success of the Health Visitor's persuasion.
Artificial feeding has become a very common
practice, which is greatly to be deplored. The Health
Visitors' duty is to urge the continuance of breastfeeding
to the utmost extent, and to ensure that the
mother is given suitable advice as to the proper modification
of a supplementary artificial feed, should this
be necessary as a final resort.
Ophthalmia Neonatorum—inflammation of the
eyes of the new-born—is a disease which does a great
deal of harm to the eyes of new-born infants who may
contract it unless most careful precautions are taken
at the time of the confinement. When a case of this
kind is notified the Health Visitor calls immediately.
Cases of Puerperal Pyrexia and Fever are also notifiable
by law, and here again the Health Visitor visits