The endowment of motherhood / by Henry D. Harben.

  • Harben, Henry D. (Henry Devenish), 1874-
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The endowment of motherhood / by Henry D. Harben. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    12/28 page 10
    IO Such an ideal is well worth notice. It could easily be linked on to our present conditions ; it would strike at the root of the deterior- ation over which the public shed their unanimous but futile tears. Objections to State Maintenance. But it has two great disadvantages. The first is on the merits. The death rate of infants, not only in workhouses, but also in well managed private institutions, compares most unfavorably with that in the homes, even of the worst districts. The Minority Report of the Poor Law Commission (pages 100 and following) shows that the infant mortality in Poor Law Institutions is between two and three times as great as in the general population ; and that this is not entirely due to mismanage- ment is shown by the fact given in the same report that ‘3,000 infants attended to in their homes—poor and wretched as were those homes —by the competent nurses of the Plaistow Maternity Charity, had a death rate during the first fortnight after birth considerably less than that in the most successful voluntary hospitals.” The following are the rates of infant mortality for first fortnight per 1,000 births. + In four large maternity hospitals of London 1G TO. For whole population .. Bt Le Seat Me In poor law institutions of London— Legitimate children he sah AR ii AES Hlegitimate children be a re) Ort In poor law institutions outside London— Legitimate children 61 Ai id eh ise [legitimate children ee Loy S206 These statistics must be taken with some reserve, and are not by any means conclusive ; but they point to the peculiar eae of institutions for infants ‘which, although it is at present unexplained, we cannot afford to ignore, and they certainly justify the conclusion arrived at by the signatories to that report: ‘‘It may well be that human infants, like chickens, cannot long be aggregated together even in the most carefully devised surroundings without being injuriously affected.”’ On the other hand, Dr. McVale in his report to the Poor Law Commission 1s impressed by the admirable wots done in the maternity wards in the large city infirmaries. ‘There could be no comparison between the comfort and safety of midwifery practised in such surroundings and that conducted in the homes of the labor classes. . I see no reason not to give institutional treatment.’ Apart from these facts altogether the institutional solution savors too much of what a great philosopher calls “regimentation.” It might tend to cut the race all to one pattern, to turn out citizens after the fashion of machine-made articles. It might tend to stifle true * Of 3,005 infants attended at birth by the nurses of the Plaistow Maternity Charity in the mother’s own home in one of the most. poverty-stricken districts of West Ham, 47 died in the first fortnight, or 15°33 per 1,000 births. + Minority Report, Part 1, Chapter III.
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3