[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Acton].

  • Acton (London, England). Borough Council.
Date:
[1932]
Catalogue details

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

Credit: [Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Acton]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    24/98 (page 23)
    23 The ward allocation is made from the notifications which are received under the Notification of Births Act. The number of notifications does not exactly correspond always with the number of registrations. The births have to be notified within 36 hours, whilst a delay of 6 weeks may occur in the registration of a birth. There is not much difference in the number notified and registered in the district in the year as the births which occur towards the end of the year and are not registered until the following year are equalised by the births which have occurred towards the end of another year and have not been registered in the same year under similar conditions. The difference between the number of notified births and registered births arises from differences in the practice of various sanitary authorities. Some authorities send intimations to the district concerned of all the outside births which have occurred in their area. Other authorities do not supply this information. It will be inferred though from the table that this information is now fairly complete. There is only a difference of 18 in the number of notifications received and the total number of live births belong ing to the district as supplied by the Registrar General. There is a considerable drop, not only in the birth-rate, but also in the total number of births, and the cause is not far to seek. Whatever our views may be on the subject of birth-control, we must face the fact that contraception is being practised more and more among almost every class of the population. There is no birth control clinic inside the borough, but there are at least three in neighbouring boroughs and it is known that a large number of our married women make extensive use of these. In another para graph, I refer to the deaths from sepsis following abortion, and it must be admitted that where contraceptive methods are not used, other practices are followed which are more harmful still to the mother. It is a subject which no one wished to discuss, but it would be idle to ignore certain facts, such as the activity of abortionists among mothers, the extensive use of aborticfacient drugs and mechanical attempts at abortion. It may be argued that the question is more of a social than a medical one, that the condition is not one which concerns a sani tary authority, but it is impossible to separate the medical from the social aspect of the subject. One has to consider not only whether birth-control does harm in itself, but whether it is more harmful than the attempts which are made to bring about the premature expulsion of the foetus. Although there may be no organic disease in the mother, we are forced to consider the harm which may re sult from frequent pregnancies, insufficient rest, insufficient nourish ment, &c. These are problems which are being forced continually to the notice of all public health workers.