[Report 1934] / Medical Officer of Health, Chelmsford Borough.

  • Chelmsford (England). Borough Council
Date:
1934
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1934] / Medical Officer of Health, Chelmsford Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    19/52 (page 17)
    Xame. Address. Jackson, Miss 10. T. . . l.,angford, Mrs. S. G. Ritchie, Mrs. M. R. (District Nurse-Midwife) Willliams, Miss E. lam lad to he able to re])ort a attended liy “ Handy M’omen,” th numher is nil. 29, Braemar Avenue. 2, Christy Avenue. 54a, Hill Road, Sprinjrfield, 84, Gal ley wood Road. decrease in the numher of confinements ugh I shall not he satisfied until that ' I cannot too strongly urge that every expectant mother should engage a I registered midwife, for it is on the skilled attention of registered midwives that centres all the puhlic health procedure to help her. If anything appears to he ■ going wrong before, during or after the confinement, the midwife will call in the patient’s own doctor, and his fee will he paid by the County Couneil. Secondly ' —if the patient is unable to pay the midwife’s fee, the Borough Council will I pay it ; and thirdly, if a home hel]) is required to look after the hou.se during the Iving-in period, the Borough Council will provide one, hut these services are j conditional on a registered midwife being in attendance. A proportion of the cost of the above three .services is recovered by the Councils according to the means of the patient. j As Inspector of Midwives, I have been struck by the high standard the registered Midwives have set themselves, without exception, in their difficult j and arduous work. These ladies are under the control of the Supervising I .\uthority (Essex County Council), and on the occurrence of a case of Puerperal Fever or Pyrexia in their practice, can be stopped practising for such time as ! may be required to ensure that they may not be the source of infection ; j.suitable compensation is payable in such cases. But the unregistered Midwife is under no proper control, is in many cases ignorant of how the infection may I be carried about, and is thus a definite source of danger. It is certainly much {safer for the prospective mother to engage a trained Midwife and no doctor, Ithan a doctor and a Handywoman. The Midwife will always send for a doctor should anything in any way go wrong. Maternal mortality. I See Table on Page 7. Actually there w-ere 2 maternal deaths during 1934, giving a maternal jmortality rate of 4.78 per 1,000, but the Registrar-General has seen fit to include the second maternal death under the cla.ssification “ Nephritis.” He •states :—“ It w'ill, how^ever, be included in the table of deaths associated with pregnancy, but not classified thereto, w'hich is published in the text volume of the Registrar-General’s Statistical Review. I 1 investigated both ca.ses fully and had the valuable assistance of Dr. f'hristie Brown, our Consulting Gynaecologist. In both cases everything os-sible was done, both before and during the confinement.