[Report 1968] / Medical Officer of Health, York City.

  • York (England). City Council.
Date:
1968
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1968] / Medical Officer of Health, York City. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    61/128 (page 61)
    Care of the Unmarried Mother. The number of mothers giving birth to illegitimate children in 1968 was 184 (compared with 179 in 1 967), 11 per cent of the total live births in York, four being in temporary residence in the City. Of these cases, five were young girls who had conceived under the age of 16 and forty-seven were married women having illegitimate children. Of the babies born in 1 968, 125 remained with their mothers and 58 were placed for adoption, 55 by arrangement with the York Adoption Society and 3 through the Catholic Adoption Society. Sixty mothers were helped with the provision of accommodation, furniture, bedding, etc., and 64 had grants from voluntary societies, including monthly grants from the Buttle Trust and Dr. Barnados Home. Maternal Mortality There were no maternal deaths during the year. MIDWIFERY SERVICE (Section 23) The authority employs nine domiciliary midwives including one specially trained for work with the premature baby. All are recognised for the training of pupil midwives for Part II of the Certificate of the Central Midwives Board. There were eleven midwives in practice at the end of the year, nine of whom were employed by the Council, one in private practice, and one in a Nursing Home. Two hundred and forty-five cases were attended by the Authority's Domiciliary Midwives, and none by midwives in private practice. The proportion of domiciliary, compared with institutional confinements, was 14.4 per cent to 85.6 per cent. Seventy-one per cent of patients confined at home received pethidine and eighty-seven per cent trilene analgesia. The number of cases in which medical aid was summoned during the year by a midwife for domiciliary cases was one. Maternity Liaison Committee. This is a committee of professional representatives of hospital, domiciliary midwifery and general practitioner services. It met once during the year, with the Medical Officer of Health as chairman, and the Secretary of the Hospita Management Committee as secretary.