BABY WEEK IN LONDON

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 29, 29 October 1917, Page 6

BABY WEEK IN LONDON

A GREAT LIFE-SAVING CAMPAIGN. I In introducing the Baby Week campaign of the Plunket Society in New Zealand, it may be of interest to tell howLondon began its great "Baby Week" on July 2, when Her Majesty the Queen personally opened the National Baby Week Exhibition in London. "Her Majesty (we read in "The Queen") was received by a guard of honour of. 160 babies! Groups of wounded soldiers greeted her first, however, in the palmdecked entrance, fathers in most cases of the babies or their companions on whom choice had not fallen that day. It had beon arranged that the Queen should hold a baby in her arms when declaring the exhibition open, the honoured infant being presented t<} her by Mrs. Parker, the late Lord Kitcheners only sister; but this part of the programme had to be dropped, as indeed any formal opening ceremony, but Her Majesty bestowed some kindly pats on the wee person's dark hair, as Mrs. Parker laughingly held him in her arms." The gathering included six sets*-of triplets, and one woman present had had two sets of triplets within tho past three years, and could boast also of a eon serving in the Army. Her Majesty bestowed caresses on many of the youngsters as she passed through into the exhibition hall, patting their cheeks or shaking their chubby hands. The Keynote. To make the world fit for the mothers as weli as to make the. mothers fit for the world might be cailed the keynote of the National Baby Week Exhibition (writes tho special woman correspondent of the "Manchester Guardian" at the Baby Week Exhibition). It really exists to spread knowledge and give help, and not to finance 'the makers of patent foods, so there is a refreshing absence of tho purely advertising element. Of course it is impossible to set up a high ideal boi'oro the working-class mother without demonstrating how far 6hort of it hor conditions force her to fall. The glaring difference, for instance, between tho model cottage shown by the National Association for the Prevention of Tuberculosis and the insanitary, unhealthy hovel that stands beside it is a condemnation of our housing system and not of our mothers, though as such it calls nono the less for exposure. Tho same is true of the very interesting exhibit of the Royal Now Zealand Society for the Health of Women and Children, where maps and charts aro shown of tho remarkable decline whioh.has taken place in that country in child mortality, as well as suggestions given "for the health of women and children." _ These include "fresh air, pure water, suitable food and clothing, muscular exercise, reasonable warmth, cleanliness, mothoring management, rest and sleep"—all excellent precepts, no doubt, but unattainable to the mass of the women and children who live in our towns.

A Bigger Toll than War. "The annual loss of life among our infant population is greate'r than tho death-rate on the battlefields of France and inlanders, only presented to us under less striking circumstances (wrote Lady Cynthia ColvSle in the . "Daily News' during Baby Week). Every woman, married or otherwise, sliould\ take her share either by active work, or by giving money or by propaganda, or at least by interest, in helping to influence public opinion and' to stir tho public conscience by setting the whole national machine, if need be, creaking and groaning in the effort to make good one of the most terrible wrongs of our modem system. Money, education and legislation all have their share to bring about improved industrial and economic conditions, which are required to make our English civilisation the great and splendid thing it ought to be. Lord Devonport'said recently that 'every householder should be in a sense a food controller,' and I should like to vary that statement as follows: that every woman, whether married or unmarried, should ho in some degree an infant welfare worker. Wo know that more than half the total loss of infant life is due to bad pre-natal conditions. A hundred thousand infants under one year old die every year, and of those deaths an enormous percentage is due to want of care before the birth of the child. To this must be added the still births, which average about 80 per ! thousand; hut the actual number of prenatal deaths is estimated to equal, if not exceed, the number of post-natal deaths, so that we are confronted by a total loss of over 200,000 infant lives every year. For pre-natal welfare a certain amount has already been done, bnt a great deal remains to accomplish. Every infant welfare centre should have, if possible, an- ante-natal clinic, where good advice can bo given to expectant mothers, and from which abnormal cases can be referred to a hospital or a doctor for treatment An improvement in the status of midwives would also ho a helpful factor in promoting pre-uatsl welfare, but i<'*f and foremost the problem is undoubtedly an economic one. We know that women work too long and too hard before their children ara born, and whenever there ;s a shortage of food in the home it is always the mother who goes without first. Wo may look to legislation after the war to improve the conditions that have brought about this state of thing!-: but there are two other agencies which might he mentioned which are already helping to improve pre-natal conditions. These are Best Homes into which expectant mothers in need of rest and pond fond can go for a period of somo weeks before their confinement; and the Home Herns Society, which fends out women h the homes to'do Hip housework and washins, and look after the children while the mother, is Im'd ur>. and w free her from all inxiefy d-irir.s her confinement."

Helping the Mother. Judge Neil, of Chicago, famous for the success in America of his scheme of State support for widows with dependant children, gave a lecture at the London Exhibition, in which he said: "The mother is the best guardian of her children. Her instincts aro natural and normally enthusiastic. But alio can only fulfil that office properly if she has the money with which to do. If she hasn't the money, the old plan was the cruol and wasteful one of punishing hor, and handicapping the future of hor children, by separation. But in many States of the Union now the widow becomes responsible to tho Stato for tho care of her children, and is placed upon the county pay roll in exactly tho same wav as the country judge or any other public eorvant."