[Report 1951] / Medical Officer of Health, Denbighshire County Council.

  • Denbighshire (Wales). County Council. no2004062613.
Date:
1951
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1951] / Medical Officer of Health, Denbighshire County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    17/106 (page 17)
    MATERNAL MORTALITY. Since 1941 the Maternal Mortality Rate has steadily decreased, being' lowest for the County during 1948—a year when the number of births was above the average. Several factors have contributed to this apprecialr’e reduction in maternal deaths, but the most important has been the re- duct.'on of deaths from infection, which have been markedly reduced since the introduction of the sulphonamides and, more recently, the antil)iotics. The improvement in the standard of ante-natal care, the availability of specialist services and the, organisation of “ Flying Squads ” to render emergency treatment to mothers in their homes, have contributed to the decrease in Maternal Mortality. The following table shows the Maternal Mortality Rate in Denbighshire for the past ten years: 1 1 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1 1951 1 1 IMaternal Mortality 1 3.2 2.3 1.0 2.5 2.6 1.4 0.9 1.3 1.4 1.5 i INFANT MORTALITY. The Infant Mortality Rate of 35.5 is the lowest attained in Denbighshire and while th.'s gives satisfaction to a'l con- cerned, it must not lead to complacency, and there is room fi r further improvement. It will be noted that 16 infants d.ed from Pneumonia. All these cases occurred during the first quarter of 1951, while there was a widespread ep.’demic of respiratory infection. These might well have been con- sidered to have been preventable deaths for, if parents had received and acted on advice on the prevention of cross in- fection, it is likely that the infants would have avo.hled this lethal infection. A scrutiny of the home conditions of these 16 infants suggested that in 13 cases facilities were availalde for adequate isolation of the infants, wh.ile, in three, home circumstances did not permit such a precaution. In the Annual Report for 1950, I suggested that the number of Infant Deaths might be correlated to the numher of Health V.isitors in the area. The case load of each Health Visitor determines the number of visits to each home and the ])romptness of the first vis.R. Ideally, each bahy should be visited bv the Flealth Visitor on the 1.5th or 16th day and weekly thereafter until six months, and then three-monthly, and some significance may be gleaned from the following table: