A HEALTHY RACE

Hokitika Guardian, 2 May 1932, Page 8

A HEALTHY RACE

A NEW ZEALAND EXAMPLE

MOTHER GRAFT AND CHILD

WELFARE.

LONDON, April 9.

The aims of a inothercraft club were

discussed last week 1 at a meeting of .the new Edinburgh Mothereraft club, held at Overseas House, Princes Street.

Tlie speaker was Miss AY in if red Wrench, who has studied the subject

iii New Zealand, Canada, and the Mother Country. ,

Dr James Young, chairman of the General Committee, who presided, said

that' one of the most important advances in connection with health had been child welfare, and the value Of the child wefare clinics was evidenced by a dramatic drop in infantile mortality figures. Their effects, however, were largely restricted to one class of the community, and denied to members of the professional and middle classes.- The purpose of the Edinburgh Mothorcraft Club was to give those mothers who were, anxious to join instruction in such matters as clothing, feeding, and habits of babies which were ordinarily supposed to come instinctively to them, but which the activities of the health centres had shown to he by no means instinctive. A clinic met once a week at 13 Castle terrace, at which they had in attendance a highly qualified nurse who had had special training with the most apthorativc society on the subject in this country, the ; Mothereraft Training Society. Members' of this club were kept an coiirant with general i tendencies in child welfare. Miss Wrench traced the history pf the movement, which began in' New Zealand in 1907. New Zealand to-day led the world. The' movement spread to Great Britain in 1917, to Australia in 1923, to South Africa in 1925, and ’; to Canada in 1931. ; There . was also .'some unofficial work /’going on in China, Ceylon, and .elsewhere. St. Andrews was the pioneer in Scotland. ■lt was a case of commonsense scien- • tificall.v applied, said Miss Wrench, b At one time, a groom or a kennelmaid ! was better paid than a woman looking 'after .children. That attitude of j mind was changing, however, and women all over the world were beginning to realise that it was high time that ' they knew something about bringing ■i up children themselves. She cited in- ! fant morality rates for 1930,' ranging ■from 34 per 100 babies in New' Zealand to 89 in France and Scotland, ,j and 94 in Canada. The low rate in I New Zealand she attributed to the ’ universal knowledge of child welfare .'! in the -hands of’ .the population. It : had all been put oil a scienific basis, ■land there was nothing haphazard I about it. This knowledge was dissetuj inated through the Government and the Press. There were three dietetic hospitals for a population of a million j as" against’ Britain's one dietetic" bos'jpitals' for a population of n mi. Eon as against Britain’s one dietetic hospital r for 45,000,000. The race being raised in New Zealand to-day was healthier than ally race in the world, simply because they had had intensive mothereraft work for. the last twentyfive years. The whole point, she said, “was to keep the well habv well,” and to produce an A 1 race instead of a C 3 race.