National Conference on Infant Welfare : report of the proceedings of the National Conference on Infant Welfare, held at Kingsway Hall, London, on July 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, 1919.

  • National Conference on Infant Welfare (1919 : London)
Date:
1919
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: National Conference on Infant Welfare : report of the proceedings of the National Conference on Infant Welfare, held at Kingsway Hall, London, on July 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, 1919. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    But there is another point which I have not heard anybody mention to-day, and that is that nobody seems to attempt to make the father love the child. Why should not an attempt be made to get hold of the man, and get him to love the child ? If you were to go to him with it, and get him to nurse it ‘a little, I think you would probably do a great deal to get into his body and his mind that the child was as much his as the mother’s, and very often you might save them both from further trouble in that direction. We have also heard much about the foster mother and the mother of the child being unable to earn enough money to keep it. Now, in our county I meet that in many cases by the Milk Order. I give enough milk to the mother, even if she is on board and lodgings, and in this way you can meet the question of support, and provide the infant with the proper food that it ought to have. With regard to abortion, the midwife, perhaps, comes in contact with that earlier almost than anybody else, and we have had, I am sorry to say, quite as much of it in the country as you have in the towns. For several years I have looked out for the special parishes in our county in which it is practised, and it can often be traced to one woman. It is not a question by any means only of illegitimate children ; I am sorry to say that it is quite as much the unwanted child of the married woman. There, again, I think the midwife can influence the women better than anybody else. But the newspapers, and especially the Sunday ones, are responsible for these advertisements. As a private monthly nurse, I should also like to tell you that amongst the educated classes as soon as a baby is born, it is a common thing for both parents to receive the most horrible literature. So that it is not only by stopping the advertisements that appear in the newspapers, but also by stopping the people from sending these advertisements by post, that you can deal with this evil. Dr. W. E. HENDERSON (C.M.O. Westmorland): We must get back to first principles in the prevention of all these sorrowful facts. We must begin with the young, and teach them the facts of life. And this point was splendidly put by Miss Norah March and the Bishop of Kensington. We have in the past, somehow or other, by our mis- handling of the child, made virtue appear stodgy, and vice, by comparison, alluring. Now we have to reverse the whole thing, and teach the child that life is a great big thing, a great adventure, and that inchastity and intemperance, by com- parison are mean and base and petty. The thing to do is to develop self-discipline from within by character building rather than impose discipline from without. This is the plan followed in the Cheery Brotherhood of 13 :
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