EDUCATION AND INFANT WELFARE.

Northern Advocate, 12 May 1915, Page 2

EDUCATION AND INFANT WELFARE.

ENGLAND WAKING UP. It is a hopeful sign to find a column in the latest British Medical Journal devoted to v report by the medical officer to the Board of Education on the subject of "Education aiu! Infant Welfare."

"Until this year the reports have dealt with the condition of the school child. Attention has been focusse.l on the improvement of the child's environment in school and the amelioration of such defects as are found to hinder its progress in school. Tins work and also the marked attention that has been drawn to the hereditary factors in disease have had the result of throwing back the focus of attention, so that it is to the infant, and still more to -the mother of the infani, that attention is being directed.

"The diseases of the school child ar c the result in too many cases of neglected infantile conditions, and these, again, are the result of maternal neglect, or of ignorance in the young mother. EDUCATION IN MOTHERCRAFT A STATE NECESSITY. "The education of the mother is thus recognised as a factor of primary importance, and with that there is the acknowledgment of mothercraft as one of the chief—if, indeed, it be not the chief—industry of the State.

"Infant mortality is still too high. In 1913 no fewer than 95,801 children j under one year of age died in England and Wales, or 108 per 1000 births. That the condition of the mother has much to do with the vitality of her child is shown by the fact that of legitimate births the death-rate was 104, whilst of illegitimate births it was as high as 213. The figures show a decline on past years; but they are still too high. The most serious causes of mortality are given as:' Epidemic diarrhoea and enteritis, due to bad feeding; prematurity and immaturity and congenital defects, due in part to poor maternal physique or disease; bronchitis and pneumonia, due to exposure to cold and 'infection. These throe groups are responsible for 70 per cent, of the deaths. A COLOSSAL LOSS. ■ "The lost labour and energy represented in these infant deaths, not to take into consideration the potential loss of so many lives, is colossal. So many women have for nine months been semi-invalided, and all to no purpose. They have given of their lifeenergy, and all to no purpose. They have sustained the shock of birth and the added shock of the loss of the child. Again, these things have now a monetary value, since the pregnant woman costs the insurauce funds so much for her temporary incapacity, and the maternity allowance is wasted. It is therefore on the meanest j grounds good policy to spend in the I hope of retrieving such heavy wastage 'as this. THE REMEDY. "What is proposed is the concentration of attention on improved feeding, higher standard of maternal physique, and appropriate Infant management. Those are the direct personal matters that require remedy. In addition, there are certain external causes of infant mortality—"domestic insanitation in the widest sense of the term, industrial employment of married women, unsatisfactory .systems if the disposal of excreta, the unfavourable conditions of urban life, overcrowding, uupaved yards and streets, inefficient scavenging, poverty, and filth." Of these we would place the employment of married women as the chief offender. ENGLAND FOLLOWING A FRENCH LEAD. '\Aiothercraft is now being: taught in the public elementary schools, not only by way of lessons In personal hygiene and domestic economy, but by arrangements whereby parties of giria attend at schools for mothers, day nurseries, and the like. Similar work is done in the secondary schools, and in the evening classes for adolescents and adults."

[Extracts from Aledica! Report to

Board of Education, as published in the British Medical Journal for March 20, 11)15.] MOTHERCRAFT EDUCATION JN NEW ZEALAND SCHOOLS. Between five and six years ago the first deiiiiito series of school lessons in mother-crafi in the Dominion was given at the Tim am Technical School by the Finnket Nurse, Miss Bowman, who was the firs I, matron of the Karitane Hospital. This was a course of. , seven lectures and demonstrations, arranged for by Mr Grant, the healm aster of the school, who spoke very warmly as to the excellence of the teaching and the S'i'eat interest .show;:. !).v Hie girls who attended. Equally striking is the testimony oi' the headmaster of the Nelson High School, in reference to a series of nine lectures recently inaugurated at his institution by the local Nurse, Miss .Morgan, whose course is I outlined below. 1 cite the case of Timaru and Nelson merely because their' courses oi' school teaching of mothorcraft. represent respectively the first and the most recent that have come under our notice. Similar work has been done by Nurse Chanpell in the North Island and by Miss Baker, the Plunket Nurse at Oamarn, and by others.

MOTHERCRAFT SYLLABUS FOR NELSON" HIGH SCHOOL. Lecture I.—Air. Abundance of pure, cool, outside air flowing fresh and free day and night, etc Lecture ll.—Pood. Birth to nine months. Demonstration —making No. 1 Humanised Milk. Lecture 111. —Food nine months to two years. Demonstration —making Humanised Milk No. 2. Lecture IV.—Cleanliness. bathing, clothing. Demonstration— bathing baby. ; Lecture V.—Muscular exercise and \ sensory stimulation. Warmth, re- i gularity of all habits. Dernonstra- ; tion. I Lecture VI —.Mothering, management, j rest and sleep. Demonstration — making baby's bed. | Leciture Vtfl. —Milestones on baby's ; road. . I Lecture Vlll.—Cries of baby. j Lecture IX.—Teeth, dummy or comforter. Demonstration. 1