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34 Maternity and Child Welfare.
Maternity and Child Welfare Centre.
The Maternity and Child Welfare Clinics have been held
weekly in premises, admirably suited to the work of the Clinics, at
the Technical Institute, North VVorple Way, Mortlake.
The work carried out at the Child Welfare Centre during 1922
has been highly satisfactory, and has proceeded on the following
lines:—
All infants and children attending the Clinics have been
regularly weighed and kept under observation, so that any departure
from normal health might be discovered at the earliest stage.
All infants and children at their first attendance at the Clinic,
and subsequently whenever appearing to be ailing or not making
satisfactory progress, have been seen by the Medical Officer, and
advice given to the parents.
Educational work, which is essential to the proper conduct of an
Infant Welfare Centre, has been both individual and collective: individual
advice has been given by the Health Visitors and by the Medical
Officer at consultations with mothers, and collective instruction has
been given by Officers on the Staff, in the form of lectures and
addresses to mothers on the care and management of their children.
One of the chief aims at the Centre has been to encourage
breast-feeding.
Infants' foods for artificial feeding have been supplied at the
Centre at cost price to mothers in cases in which continuance of
breast-feeding has been found to be impossible or has already been
abandoned. Infants' foods are supplied to mothers only on the
recommendation of the Medical Officer.
The number of new cases, the total number of infants and
young children attending at the Centre, and the total attendances
made by them during the year are set out below:—
Number of new cases under 1 year 130
Number of new cases, 1 to 5 years 45
Total new cases (infants and children —
under 5 years) 175