INFANT WELFARE WORK

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 29, 4 February 1925, Page 5

INFANT WELFARE WORK

THE NEW ZEALAND SYSTEM,

<FKOM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

LONDON, 31st December. Miss J. • Paterson, a Scottish nurse, who trained under Dr. Truby King, continues to make her. influence felt in this country. lii the lectures which she I gives she has the gift of communicating ' to her audiences some of the enthusiasm which has been aroused -in herself by her work and study in the Dominion. At the last sessional meeting of the Royal Sanitary Institute, Miss Paterson lectured on "The Economic Value of the Healthy Infant and the New,. Zealand Welfare Work to the State." At the outset, Miss Paterson admitted that in the matter of child -welf are England had done- much... But. Jshe thought that still more could be-done. It was often said when speaking of the success of the movement in New Zealand that it was the splendid climate which brought, about such wonderful results. Miss Paterson, however, pointed out that there were many'varieties of temperature in the islands, and, moreover, that the climate had in no way changed in the last eighteen years. Yet during that time Neve Zealand had halved her infantile <!eath rate. .

lii two directions she thought, New Zealand could show an improvement over English methods. Sere in Enjji land each clinic was, more or less, a ruTe untd itself, and mothers ;,'pa'ssmg"..fiomV: dne hfeighbo'ttrhood to another often found it very mystifying to be told that the plan which they had beeri taught to follow in One place Was,---under ■different authorities, considered - .quite, wrong. In New Zealand all the'nurseS who work Under the Royal New Zealand Society fo~r the Kealth "6! Women and Children are' trained- at .the. same in the same methods. ■ These include a scientific knowledge of the modification of cows' and other mifks for children who have to be fed artificially. They are taught this iri a. practical way with which comparatively": fewnurses here are thoroughly' iit home.' Again, in England, child welfare clinics" ■are confined largely to the • .working classes, and those who ar6 better offi require the advice of health tisitbrs -as much as their poorer sisters. In New Zealand there / are lectures for all classes. •' . ..

Miss Paterson illustrated ho.'.' lecture on the. work in New Zealand .'with laiir tern slides. Incidentally, she mentioned that Dr. Truby King had starttid a crrtsade against.the fashionable pegtop heels so frequently worn. This was because of their tendencyto destroy the balance of a .Woman's body; often "with disastrous results to her internal organs!