[Report 1913] / Medical Officer of Health, Somerset County Council.

  • Somerset (England). County Council.
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1913] / Medical Officer of Health, Somerset County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    53/122 (page 49)
    There is a decrease iu the number of bona-fide .Midwives. Midwives for tlie years 1907-14)1:} is as follows :— The number of Certified 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1913 Trained .. 81 97 123 135 155 158 169 ]>ona-lide 125 117 115 104 102 76 65 Total . . 200 214 238 239 257 234 234 This table shows a stead}^ increase in the trained and a stea'.lily maintained decrease iji the number of Bona-fide Midwives. The jiercentages of cases attended by Midw ives during the years ! 1907-1913 were as follows :— 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1913 By whom attended Trained ^1 id wives 19.G 25.8 24.6 19.8 24.1 23.6 27.5 Bona-fide Mid wives 21.3 18.6 18.5 19.6 18.8 15.8 10.2 Not by Registered Midwives 59.1 55.5 56.9 60.6 57.1 60.5 62.3 The percentage of cases attended by bona-fide Midwives has now been reduced to ten. Idiis would be very satisfactory if we could be satisfied that all the remaining cases were attended either by medical men or trained mid wives. Unfortunately there is a good deal of evidence to show that a considerable number of these cases are still being attended by uncertified women. iS^o prosecutions of uncertified women practising as mid wives have been undertaken during the year, although it is evident that there are a good many sueh persons. A number of cases have been investigated. The difficulty is to obtain proof that they are attending women in childbirth habitually and for gain ” other than under the direction of a qualified medical practitioner. The frequency with which a medical man was called in by the Midwives is shown in the following table, which gives the percentages :—■ Doctor sent for 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1913 By Trained Midwife 12.2 12.5 14.3 11.9 16.9 12.8 By Bona-fide Midwife . . 7.6 5.2 5.3 4.7 4.1 5.6 44iere has been a good deal of earelessness in the sending in of the prescribed form of notification “ of sending for medical help,” the 3^early returns from the midwives showing that medical aid was called in 308 times Avhile only 239 notifications have been received by the Supervising Authority. During the year the Inspector of ^lidwives paid 413 visits of inspection to trained and 209 to bona-fide midwives, representing an average of 2.8 visits to each trained and 3.9 visits to each bona-fide midwife. Lectures have been given by Miss Wood, the Inspector of Midwives, at Radstock, Yeovil, Weston-super-Mare and Taunton, and have been well attended generally. Experience shows that these lectures are attended much better by the trained than by the bona-fide midwives. The bona-fide who need the lectures most do not usually think it worth their while to attend.