INFANT WELFARE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 July 1942, Page 4

INFANT WELFARE

USE OF “NANNIES” ON WHEELS IN BRITAIN. Children who may be made homeless in certain blitzed areas of England will be visited by “Nannies” on wheels. They are three cars which form a mobile infant welfare unit. Equipped with everything from a cooking stove to a new-born baby’s first garment, “Nannie I” is the maternity van with complete ' accouchement equipment; “Nannie II” the technical van for dispensing and emergency feeding of mothers and infants, and “Nannie III” for spares and supplies. Presented to the nation by a famous firm of chemists, they are staffed by three Stateregistered nurses (one of them a certificated midwife), five nurses who have had a short infant welfare course and a male orderly-cum-mechanic. When the unit goes into action a tent annexe provides ward accommodation, and is fitted up with portable cots and beds.

Should there be any lull in bombing attacks, the unit is centred at a provincial town in the south of England, and goes round the outlying villages not so well served with clinics as the big cities. Under the supervision of the regional Medical Officer of Health, the nurses make house to house visits, set up war nurseries for evacuated children and help to create new day nurseries.

The mobile unit, the first of its kind, is expected to be the forerunner of a maternity and infant welfare service to outlying industrial and rural districts.