Report upon maternity and child welfare for the year 1929 / Monmouthshire County Council.

Monmouthshire County Council

Date:: 1929

Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Report upon maternity and child welfare for the year 1929 / Monmouthshire County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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These figures show the methods of feeding at the first visit of the Health Visitor to the home, and there is a drop of .8 per cent, in the number of babies breast fed, as com¬ pared with the previous year (1928). There has been a slight downward tendency in the last three years, but the present percentage can be considered a satisfactory one. The mother’s milk is the best and cheapest for the baby, but it is surprising how much persuasion and encouragement are necessary to achieve this ideal with present-day mothers. It is oftentimes difficult for mothers to carry out breast-feeding, but it is generally lack of patience which places so many children on the bottle. Breast-milk is clean and the composition is, perfect and every mother should be taught to overcome any diffi¬ culties which may arise to prevent its use. When the mother attends the Maternity and Child Welfare Centre, the difficulties are usually overcome, for the Clinic Doctor enquires closely into every reason for failure to breast-feed, and in many cases is able to convince the mother that she can by perseverance breast-feed her child. Under nourished mothers are often found to be suffering from digestive troubles and carious teeth, and when these have been attended to breast-feeding can be carried out. Feeding the baby regularly by the clock every three hours or four hours according to age in the day-time and not at all in the night is another important precept taught at the Centres. This, added to regularity in bathing, sleeping and other functions tends to make a happy and contented baby and a happy and contented mother. The breast-fed child seldom suffers from nutritional disorders or from over-feeding.. It resists disease more easily and as, proved by statistics, is more likely to survive a serious: illness than the bottle-fed baby. III. —INTERVIEWS WITH DISTRICT MEDICAL OFFICERS OF HEALTH.— In accordance with the arrangements made at the initiation of the scheme, visits were paid by the Health Visitors to the Local Medical Officers for consultation purposes, and reports were madei to the District Medical Officers of Health upon sanitary defects at the home. Although in some districts considerable progress has-been made with the provision of houses for the working classes, it cannot be said that the supply has in any way met the demand, and there is still overcrowding throughout the County. As stated in previous reports, many houses which have been condemned as unfit for habitation have to remain in occupation for want of alternative accommodation. Bad housing is an important factor in the causation of bad health. IV. —ANTE-NATAL.—The number of visits paid to expectant mothers was 319 to new case®, and 265 re-visits, a total of 584 visits. The number of these visits is increasing yearly and will continue to increase as the facilities, for ante-natal care which have been provided in the County become more widely known. V. —PUERPERAL t'EVER.—During the year 1929, notifications of 12 cases of puer¬ peral fever were received under the Public, Health (Puerperal Fever and Puerperal Pyrexia) Regulations, 1926, from the District Medical Officers of Health, but in the return of cases, of infectious disease made weekly by these Medical Officers of Health to the Registrar General, 20 cases ofi puerperal fever have been included. An investigation has been made into the discrepancy and it is found that 9 of these cases were puerperal pyrexia and not puerperal fever. The 12 notifications were received from the following districts :— Abersychan, 2; Abertillery, 1; Bedwellty, 1; Ebbw Vale, 3; Mynyddislwyn, 1 ;Ponty- pool, 3; and St. Mellons, 1.

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