[Report 1919] / Medical Officer of Health, Salop / Shropshire County Council.

  • Shropshire (England). County Council.
Date:
1919
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1919] / Medical Officer of Health, Salop / Shropshire County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    34/58 (page 21)
    MATERNITY AND CHILI) WELFARE. The Maternity and Child Welfare Scheme has now been in operation for about five years. Inuring the whole of this time gradual progress has been made, so that now a scheme fairly complete i:i -oine respects, but still capable of very great improvement in others is in ojjcration. Ex- rience of these five years has greatly emphasiserl the importance of this work to the community, and everv year fresh lines of action open up and fresh possibilities arise. The active, although much delayed, investigations into the pliysiology of healthy living tiiat is now taking jdace, will be of little practical utility unless we can bring the results to the knowledge of the mass of the people in such a way that it will affect their every-day life. This.- eihicational work in the homes of the people must be undertaken almost entirely by the Health \’i.-'itors until the time arrives when the hygienic education and supervision of the people becomes jiart of the work of the great body of medical practitioners. The discovery of a radical method of treating syphilri can only be properly' utilised so far as children are concerned by getting the rxjiectant mothers and infants under treatment in connection with the Child Welfare Centres. It is now being fully recognised that much of the disease and ill health of the adult has it origin in the infant or during foetal life, and that this can only be radically dealt with by measures directed to improving the health of the expectant mother and the y'^oung child. Dr. Janet Campbell in the Repoit of the Chief Medical Officer of the Minritr\ of Health — the ultimate objects of all effoit for the welfare of mothers and little children should ni-ver be lost sight of, namely, to make maternity safer and less burdensome, less disabling for tin; mother ; to give the mother a sound and practical knowledge of the elementary laws of hyeiene which should govern the healthy upbringing of her family ; to aid her to carry out thc'C rules in her own home and to make good unavoidable shortcomings due to faulty enxiron- nunl, lack of means or social disability by the provision of medical care iri/its widest connotation for the infant and young child both before and after birth.” .■\s a result of the five years’ working of the scheme it may be confidently asserted that a \iTy great improvement in the upbringing of children has been effected. There is a greater .iIii)rcciatio]i of the importance of child welfare among the people. More attention is being given pi the ])roper feefling, clothing, exercise, and fresh air for the infant. Natural feeding is becoming umri* imiversal ; regularitv of feeding at satisfactory intervals is the rule rather than the excepv- liun ; the long tube bottle is rapidly disappearing, and the use of the dummy is growing less. li i' difficult to show bv statistics the improvement ot the health effected, but the only figures that one can at present quote, the death figures under one year, are eminently satisfactory : — Year Deaths. Yeai. Deaths. 1919 316 1914 461 1918 314 1913 390 1917 323 1912 390 IQ16 299 1911 512 1915 426 1910 469 The provision alread\' made for carrying out this work and the general acthuties of the Child N\ellare Committee come under the following headings :— (1) The provision for svstematic health visiting of infants up to five years of age. and of expectant mothers. (2) The proviiiion for the health visiting and nursing of measles, whooping cotigh, pneu¬ monia. and ophthalmia neonatomm. f.I) The provision and staffing of maternity and child welfare centres. (•t) The promotion of a midwifery service throughout the County. (5) The provision of medical attendance when a midwife finds medical help necessary. Ih) The provision of mateniitv beds.