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6
The Municipal Maternity Home, which could admit some 300 cases
annually—if we could arrange for confinements to take place with
mathematical precision—admitted 261 cases during 1928. Moreover,
many applicants had to be refused owing to the Home being fully
booked up for the periods required. This is a result which we have
been expecting during the last two or three years, and the time has now
arrived for considering what is to be done in the matter of enlargement.
For the benefit of your esteemed members who are not on the
Maternity Committee, it may be said that for 20 years or more, the
Maternal Mortality Rate of this country (but not as a rule of Deptford)
has remained high. On the one hand, the infantile mortality rate has
fallen, has been halved and more in that time, but as regards the
expectant mother, practically just as many thousands of these good
women, doing their duty by their country and carrying on the race, are
dying in childbed or shortly after, as their sisters before them early this
century. The causes are complex. Circumstances are largely to
blame. One thing however is clear; there must be a great development
of Maternity Homes in this country. Better midwifery practice is
imperative, conducted under hygienic surroundings.
So we return to our own Maternity Home. Here we have an
institution, opened seven and a half years ago, in which no mother
has died, and no woman has ever had Puerperal Fever. The organisation
of this Home, and of course, of the Ante-Natal work preceding
admission thereunto, has been faithfully worked out and studied, and
so the Maternal Mortality Rate is nil, and I repeat that it is an extension
of such municipal facilities which now require the kind continuous
attention of your, and other, authorities.
Coupled with this subject, is that of its hand-maiden, ante-natal
woik. At the time of writing, there are three morning sessions at the
Ante-Natal Clinic, but before this Report is in print, FYiday afternoon
will be utilised for a fourth session. The old prejudice is breaking
down. No longer does the kindly veteran woman forbid her married
daughter to attend the Ante-Natal Centre because there were no such
examinations in her young days. We began quietly and hopefully,
and here, as in the case of the Schick Test, our best advertisers are
those who have been our clients ; for, having once satisfied themselves
that all is well, they have not hesitated to tell their friends, and they
even conduct them to the Centre. The midwives too, are sending