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43
SUPPLY OF MILK AND EXTRA NOURISHMENT
Under the provisions of the Public Health (London) Act, 1936, milk may be supplied free to
necessitous nursing and expectant mothers and to children under three years of age. In certain
circumstances also, milk is granted to children between the ages of three and five years.
The Local Authority is required by the regulations of the Ministry of Health to ascertain that
need exists ; and a special Milk Sub-Committee of the Maternity and Child Welfare Committee meets
very week to consider applications and make grants.
The approximate cost of the milk granted free or at less than cost price during 1937 was:—
Dried milk £661 13 4
Wet milk £302 6 0
£963 19 4
Dinners for expectant and nursing mothers are also provided by the Council at 170, Wandsworth
Bridge Road, the food being prepared on the premises by the resident housekeeper; this supplies the
southern area of the Borough. By arrangement with the Invalid Kitchens of London, similar dinners
at the cost of the Council continue to be supplied for the northern area of the Borough at Bishop
Creighton House.
There can be little doubt that an ample well-balanced meal, not cooked by herself, is more
useful, mentally and physically, to a pregnant or nursing mother than the mere drinking of a glass
of milk.
It has been a disappointment that this facility is not more widely made use of by those who
are eligible to receive it. There are doubtless many family reasons which may prevent eligible mothers
from attending to eat their dinners, but there are also many cases where there appear to be no such
valid reasons and yet the mothers will not trouble to attend. It is a consolation however, to realise
that did serious privation exist in the Borough the dinners would be more readily accepted.
Milk is sold at cost price in cases recommended by the Medical Officers, Health Visitors or any
local practitioner or hospital Medical Officer. During 1937 under this part of the scheme 8,669 lbs.
of dried milk were supplied at a cost to the families of £670 6s. 10d., as compared with 5,985 lbs. at a
cost of £570 18s. 6d. during the previous year.
Under the arrangements made with the Public Assistance Committee of the London County
Council, dried milk is given in exchange for relief tickets in certain cases; and during the year 498 lbs.
of dried milk were so issued at a cost to the Committee of £44.
The Borough Council supplies a full-cream or humanised dried milk prepared by the spray
method and similar preparations dried by the roller process. The digestibility of either form of
dried milk is greater than that of wet milk; every mother whose infant is receiving dried milk at the
clinics is carefully and repeatedly instructed by the doctors and health visitors as to the necessity
for adding fresh orange or tomato juice to the diet.
Nearly twenty years' experience of regular work at Infant Welfare Centres has not diminished
my belief that dried milk and not wet milk should be supplied almost exclusively at such Centres,
and this is my invariable practice in the sessions that I personally conduct.
A consideration that weighs with me is that the composition of cow's milk differs from that of
human milk; and the modification necessary to render it a suitable food for human infants cannot
be looked for in the circumstances of many of those attending the clinics.
At the infant welfare centres we keep nutrient preparations sufficient to ensure complete
balance of diet with the use of any milk. Medical research is constantly bringing to light new adjuvants
to diet such as are needed to meet the requirements of children suffering from the conditions
of modern life; and at the clinics we, so far as possible, keep up to date in the provision of such
dietetic preparations.