The Decline in Infant Mortality

Extract

Although many measures which may influence the mortality of infants have within recent years come into operation, it is convenient and permissible to classify these into one or other of two broad categories. In the first place, many general measures intended to ameliorate the life and health of the people at all ages must be taken into consideration. Here we have such improvements as have been effected or attempted in the unhealthy conditions of urban life, in particular, improved housing, improved domestic and municipal sanitation, control of the milk supply, etc. The manner in which these may affect the health of infancy is obvious and need not be enlarged upon. In the second instance, we have to consider the effects of those measures which have been specially directed to the infant and the pregnant or nursing mother. From a small beginning in private philanthropic work has now sprung a vast national machinery of maternity and child welfare, a scheme which resolves itself into component parts directed towards improvements in the conditions affecting the three special periods of infant life, the ante-natal, natal and postnatal.