MOTHERCRAFT TRAINING.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 260, 1 October 1936, Page 12

MOTHERCRAFT TRAINING.

THE HON. MRS lAN BOWATER. Hon. Mrs lan S. Bowater, who is accompanying her husband on a visit to New Zealand, Australia and South Africa, arrived in Auckland this week. Mrs Bowater is a daughter of Viscount Dawson of Penn, physician to the late King George V. A great deal of time has been spent by Mrs Bowater working with various welfare organisations in England, and until recently sho was a member of the executive committee of the Mothercralt Training Society started by Sir .Truby King. At each of the four main welfare centres in London, said Mrs Bowater, there was a system of training whereby mothers and expectant mothers could learn the correct methods of baby feeding and all the main rules regarding health and hygiene. As her mother, Lady Dawson, was one of the founders of the Mothercraft Training Society, she herself had had a long connection with its work. Mrs Bowater had more recently been a. member of the London County Council in connection with welfare work in schools. It had been her duty to visit schools in North London in company with the medical inspector of schools and a doctor and nurse. The medical attention was all free, she said, and her particular work had been the visiting of parents of the pupils requiring attention in an endeavour to explain to them the type of attention necessary and their obligation to allow the child to be attended. Some parents were quite willing, but others preferred to see then- children’s teeth decay rather than overcome prejudice against medical or dental assistance. In some cases the car© committee in charge of this work had to seek the assistance of the law to ensure that the children received attention. This is Mrs Bowater’s first visit to New Zealand, although she has travelled all ovei the world, including a visit to Australia in 1928.