[Report 1925] / Medical Officer of Health, Todmorden Borough.

  • Todmorden (England). Borough Council
Date:
1925
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1925] / Medical Officer of Health, Todmorden Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    47/64 (page 47)
    The only two arguments I have heard against such work is (i) expense, (2) shyness. The cost of an efficient scheme compared with that of other work undertaken by the Corporation is negligible, only comparable to that of lighting a few street lamps, or providing a sewer to drain a house or two. As to the question of shyness amongst mothers, having regard to the recent advances which have been made in this work, which reduce all intimately personal examinations to a minimum, I am sure it does not exist other than amongst a very small cla.ss who still draw upon mid-victorian literature for a conce])tion of what England is to-da3\ My opinion of the unnecessar}^ pain and suffering and debility caused b}’' childbirth is based upon mA^ personal knowledge of hundreds of cases in Todmorden, but this cannot be reduced to statistics, and after all, my personal opinion, apart from such vStatistics, is not so striking as it would be if we were so unfortunate as to be able to show a large number or deaths or a large number of cripples due to child-birth. There is, however, one wa^ of looking at this matter which I think is impressive, and that is to remember that whilst the death rate amongst children under the age of one year in Todmorden has fallen to about a half of what it used to be, the death rate of children under the age of one month has not shown this same decline. An investigation of the underKdng causes giving rise to this deplorable mortalit^^ amongst other things, would be the function of an ante-natal clinic, and shows the distressing need there is for such work in Todmorden. Another avenue by which we can approach the investi¬ gation of Maternal suffering due to childbirth is one which I have already mentioned elsewhere, to wit, that whereas in the 3'ears of adolescence the women of Todmorden by indepen¬ dent observation are believed to be of better ph^^sical develop¬ ment than the men of Todmorden, this advantage is entirely lost during the child-bearing period of life. Child-bearing is not the onh’ factor, I know, to be considered, but it is a factor, and, in another way, demonstrates the need there is for ante-natal work in Todmorden.