[Report 1915] / Medical Officer of Health, Nottinghamshire County Council.

  • Nottinghamshire County Council
Date:
1915
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1915] / Medical Officer of Health, Nottinghamshire County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    less marked improvement from 5 to 15. And, further, that where the Infantile Mortality rate is high, the death-rate at the higher ages, 1-5 and 5-15 is also high. Children that have been most delicate and fragile as babies, have lived to play a very vigorous and sometimes brilliant part in the present War. Much has been expected and much has been gained by improvements in general sanitation and housing ; but progress is expensive and slow, and without the teaching and the co-operation of the mothers, sanitation alone is not sufficient. It has been truly said, a good, careful, intelligent, well- instructed mother, in the midst of bad surroundings, gives her baby a better chance than a careless, ignorant or drunken mother in good surroundings. The causes of Infant Mortality are many and exceedingly complex ; it must not be expected, therefore, that a few months, or even a year or two, of infant welfare work and health-visiting will reduce the infantile mortality rate to a negligible figure. Long and persistent efforts are needed, especially in the direction of home visiting, and eventually the reward is sure, if slow. I press the home visiting because the general experience has been that only about a quarter of the mothers attend the Infant Welfare Centres, and those generally the mothers least in need of advice and help. “ And the children—the little children,— “ Do you hear their pitiful cry ? “ O brothers, we must seek them, Or there in the dark they die !” Next it will be well to consider what infantile mortality rate we should aim at attaining, and what may be considered to show the reasonable success of preventive efforts in safe¬ guarding infant life. There are portions of this County where the rates for 1915 were over J80, and over 170, and in one part of a district over 200. On the other hand, one Rural District had only 43 deaths per 1,000 births ; another large Rural District only 54 ; and populous Urban Districts of over 10,000 population, had rates of 65, 74 and 75. It has been estimated that doctors’ babies have a mortality of only 40 per 1,000, and the professional classes generally only 50.