IDENTIFICATION

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22242, 5 November 1937, Page 10

IDENTIFICATION

OF BABIES

DISCS, RINGS, AND TATTOOING REMIT REJECTED BY PLUNKET SOCIETY (PRESS ASSOCIATION TELEGRAM.) WELLINGTON, November 4. A remit from Invercargill, introduced by Mrs R. M. Strang, that the clothes of babies at the Karitane homes be numbered or that some other means, such as an identification disc, be used, to make it quite impossible for the identity of a baby to be mistaken, was lost at the annual conference of the Plunket Society to-day. Discussion of the remit caused some amusement. “Little babies, to young girls, are something like little lambs, they are all alike,” said Mrs Strang. She suggested that to prevent mixing the babies in the' Karitane homes a system of numbering the cots or clothes or rings on babies’ arms should be introduced. She told of the fears of a man who had recently become a father. One or two new nurses might come on duty, or a new sister, and there could easily be a mix-up of babies if they were too busy. If they were always busy; they might not be able to recognise the babies.

'Mrs Robert Miller said that some means of identification would be very soothing to nervous mothers.

Mrs Jowett (Wellington) said that the babies’ clothes and blankets were all numbered in the Wellington Karitane Hospital. The father of the Hastings triplets, which had recently left Wellington, had assured her before the babies left that neither he nor his wife could distinguish them. Mrs Nathan (Auckland): Is there a preventive measure or has an accident happened and a child been mislaid? (Laughter.)

Mrs J. Begg (president, Dunedin): To the best of my knowledge, the Plunket Society has never mislaid a child.

Mr C. B. Barrowclough (Dunedin): I suppose the father was still a bit dazzled. (Laughter.)

Cots Numbered Miss Fitzgibbon, nursing adviser to the society, said that every baby in the homes was treated as an individual, but it also had a number. Its name and number were put on its cot. Its clothes were not marked. “Every baby is allotted to a Karitane nurse,” she said, “and she is a mother to it. I am quite sure the babies could never be mixed up. I don’t think it is possible for a mixup to happen." In the case of quadruplets, twins, or triplets, they would be given a disc to identify them. The nurse in charge of the baby or babies took a special interest in them. Replying to a question. Miss Fitzgibbon ' said that, generally speaking, there was one’ nurse in charge of one baby.

Mr A. C. Cameron (Dunedin) said he had been told that if a disc were put around a baby’s neck it would probably strangle itself. “Put it anywhere else round the baby’s anatomy and it will be taken off when the child is bathed and then the child might be mixed up,” he said. “Tire only thing to do is to tattoo it on the rump.” (Laughter.)

Dr. M. B. M. Tweed: I can assure you that everything is done that is humanly possible in the Karitane homes to prevent a mix-up. In fact, the danger is practically infinitesimal.

He said that in some American hospitals and in other places fingerprints and toe prints of babies were taken to prevent a mix-up. In all his experience, however, he had never met a case where a mother, having once handled her baby, could not know it again. The remit was then put to the vote and lost.