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Taranaki Daily News, 29 November 1919, Page 4

PROMOTING BABY WELFARE. The gratifying results achieved last Saturday in New Plymouth in aid of the Plunket Society's work show that tho community is alive to the great importance of conserving infant life, and may be regarded as a tribute to the services of the Plunket nurses. New Zealand has certainly given a lead to the Motherland and other countries in this matter, as evidenced by Dr. Truby King being specially Invited to visit Britain and set on foot a similar campaign there, which is now tinder the charge of a separate department, presided over by Dr. Addison, who recently opened a conference in London of the National Association for the Prevention of Infant Mortality and for the Welfare of Infancy. Affiliated to this Association arc all the more important voluntary agencies that have done so much for the welfare of Britain's babies, including the National Baby Week Council, under whose auspices fehe Daily Sketch arranged its £200.0 Infant Welfare Competition. It has taken many years of propaganda and initial activities to bring home to people of the Empire the necessity for common sense and human sympathy in all efforts to promote baby welfare. It is, as Dr. Addison pointed out, in the avoidance of the disabilities which so often arise in the early days of child life that we should get, in our future citizens, the real and abiding result of a diminution in the infant mortality rate. To accomplish this most desirable result it is essential to extend the service and assistance of all the different branches of the work connected with ante-natal and infant care. In Britain much reliance is placed on the provision of a great many more maternity hospitals and homes, but in the Dominion the sheet-anchor must for some time to come be the Plunket nurses. In both countries —in fact, in all countries—there should be a common centre of effort, especially as in large measure the work is bound to be dependent on voluntary organisation. At the same time the State has a manifest duty to perform in the direction of providing in all the chief centres and large towns either adequate maternity hospitals or homes, where also nurses can be trained so as to be at the service of the community in tho time of need. That they are a boon has been amply demonstrated, and though the Dominion has done much in this matter, there is far more to be done before baby welfare is placed on a satisfactory basis. It speaks well for the New Plymouth district that it has given practical evidence of that commonsense and sympathy which are, above all, the first requirements in this noble work.