[Report 1966] / Medical Officer of Health, Pembrokeshire County Council.

  • Pembrokeshire (Wales). County Council.
Date:
1966
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1966] / Medical Officer of Health, Pembrokeshire County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    15/56 (page 13)
    SECTION II LOCAL HEALTH SERVICES PROVIDED BY THE COUNTY COUNCIL UNDER THE NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE ACT 1. CARE OF EXPECTANT AND NURSING MOTHERS AND CHILDREN UNDER SCHOOL AGE. Expectant and Nursing Mothers The medical ante-natal care outside hospitals continued to be undertaken by the general practitioners. Doctors of a local group practice, with the assistance of members of the local authority nursing staff, held weekly ante-natal clinics at the Tenby clinic : the average sessional attendance during the year was twenty-eight. Domiciliary midwives continued to hold ante-natal clinics at Haverfordwest, Milford Haven, Hakin and Pembroke Dock but attendances were very limited as only mothers booked for home confinements attended. At Neyland, the local domiciliary midwife assists regularly at the ante-natal clinic held at the surgery of one of the family doctors. The staff of the County Health department organised a series of classes for expectant mothers in ‘preparation for childbirth and instruction in mothercraft’ at Haverfordwest, Tenby, Fishguard, Hakin, Narberth and Pembroke Dock. These classes were well attended—a total of 512 expectant mothers attended in 1966 as compared with 475 in the previous year and 459 in 1964. The syllabus of the classes included explanation of the development of a baby, health precautions in pregnancy, preparation for the confinement, the simple physiology of birth, and the care of a baby. During the year, the French approach to preparation for child- birth—the so-called psychoprophylactic method adapted by Mrs. Erna Wright—was taught to a number of the mothers but it is difficult to assess its efficacy. Mrs. M. Edwards, the local health visitor, continued to give weekly mothercraft and health talks to the mothers in the post-natal ward of the Maternity Unit of the South Pembrokeshire Hospital Pembroke Dock. F ’ The demand from expectant mothers for hospital confinement continued to increase and this trend has been welcomed by many general practitioners and consultant obstetricians. Associated with this demand, there has been a gradual reduction in recent years in tie average length of stay of mothers in local maternity hospitals, though the full forty-eight hour’ discharge scheme has not been adopted in any of these hospitals.