MOTHERCPwAFT

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 32, 6 August 1936, Page 18

MOTHERCPwAFT

KARITANE "PRODUCTS GIFT

(From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, July 11.

A gift of £1000 has been made by the Karitane Products Society, Ltd., to the Mothercraft Training ;Society, Highgate Hill, London, for the purpose o£ extending-its premises, thereby proividing'/an outpatients' room for mothers and isolation rqoms for the reception of. babies. , The Mqthercraft Society, which was founded by Sir Truby King, is the English counterpart of the. New Zealand Karitane ;Horiie. It'has six branches, those in addition to'Highgate being Earl's Court (London), Cardiff, Cambridge,. Brighton and .Hove,, Newport, and Kingston-on-Thames. Its work is ever increasing 'arid ever more widely appreciated.

The announcement of the New Zealand donation and a reference to the gradual progress of the Mothercraft clinic at Highgate was made-by the ■president, Lady Galway, at the annual meeting on July 9. In'the last sixteen years, she said, the development, had been amazing. Formerly babies were cared for in uncomfortable houses, the staff lived uncomfortable lives, students were boarded out, I and there was much financial anxiety. All those worries had been effaced now.: that the society had the use of the Highgate premises, but the fundamental spirit had remained the same and there had been an incessant and continuous growth of the society's activities.

Since the central rooms at Highgate had been in use it had cared for no fewer than 2700 babies and, on the whole, the death-rate had been very low. It was not, however, the objective'of the society to secure a low average death-rate, for a definite policy had been followed of admitting any baby; even though it was 'known that there could be no chance of saving life. The society's aim, was.to be of service to the mother in distress and the child in need. At present extensions were being made to the Highgate .premises, and the gift of the New Zealand society would be devoted to that purpose.

Some statistics were provided by the medical director. Dr. H. C.' Jewesbury, who mentioned in passing that the society was now in its nineteenth year. The death-rate was not more than 5.5 per cent., and the number of babies treater as in-patients totalled 2577. The majority of them had been very weakly infants and it was-a matter, upon which the society could be congratulated that more deaths had not occurred. In a world in which it was: fashionable to follow diets, no great liberties could be taken with the diet of infants.-. Although there might be some criticism, the society founded its methods upon those of Nature and had no" intention of making any alteration. -,:•'.■ - ./..-.' , ■ v- ;'-~-'\;.: ■'

The Hon. Mrs. Hbare (chairman of the committee of the' Earl's Court •branch), hoped that further clinics would be established, especially in the newly-built-up areas of London, and that before long another fen'branches would be added.