[Report 1923] / Medical Officer of Health, Doncaster County Borough.

  • Doncaster (England). County Borough Council.
Date:
1923
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1923] / Medical Officer of Health, Doncaster County Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    to feed their babies naturally, but most of them introduce artificial foods within a few weeks and gradually give up all attempt to retain the natural supply. This applies to rich and poor alike, so that we cannot say that it is altogether a matter of diet. One has only to see the number of Infant foods advertised to realize the tremendous sale there is to-day in proprietory foods. The infantile mortality rate has cer- tainly decreased but there are very many factors to be taken into account, many of them still not recognised. The Psychology of the infant is almost a blank page. This is where the new maternal science is needed. There are no experts yet, because it is only in its initial stage. Everyone can learn something new about child life. Some people have more opportunities than others, and more capacity for learn- ing. As mentioned above, every baby presents a different problem, and it is only by treating him as an individual, with a full appreciation of the facts of his ancestry, environment, and mental endowment, that the difficulties of further reducing our infant mortality rate can be overcome. Infant Welfares must be preventive and not curative centres, so that the success will be measured by the number of heatlhy babies passed through and out in a healthy condi- tion. EDUCATIONAL. The educational side of the work has been developed. It was found that talks to mothers during tea time were not profitable from an educational standpoint. Many mothers were in a hurry to get home before their school children, and were not prepared to spend the afternoon in the clinic. More- over, the noise of tea cups, the cries of babies and the constant movements in and out of the room made any concentration on the parents part impossible. We find that more knowledge is circulated in the talks among themselves, and much practical help has been given in many cases. A “ Health Motto ” is posted up on the blackboard every week, so that at the end of the year, each mother has added to her knowledge of hygiene, fifty-two health rules. A cinema lecture on “ The care of the teeth ” was given and deserved a far larger audience than it got.