Document 13: Women's City Club of New York, Maternity Center of the Women's City Club, pamphlet, 1920, WCCNY Papers, Archives and Special Collections, Hunter College, New York, N.Y. (WCCNY microfilm, reel 20, frame 234).

Document 13: Women's City Club of New York, Maternity Center of the Women's City Club, pamphlet, 1920, WCCNY Papers, Archives and Special Collections, Hunter College, New York, N.Y. (WCCNY microfilm, reel 20, frame 234).

Introduction

       This pamphlet about the Maternity Center presents statistics to demonstrate the need for the Center, reports on the Center's work, and informs readers about maternal and infant mortality.

MATERNITY CENTER

of the

Women's City Club

 

OUR HOPES JUSTIFIED

       Results of Pre-natal Work carried on for more than two
       years show:

1. Where three babies die in the entire city only one
        dies when under our care.

2. When ten are still-born, we have but three.

3. Where five mothers die under ordinary conditions,
       only two die when under our supervision.

 

IS THIS NOT WORTH WHILE?

=========

 

Women's City Club of New York

March, 1920

 

REPORT OF WORK

Patients Cared For

To date over 5,200 patients have been registered with the Center, over half of whom have been cared for by our own nurses.

Our nurses have made over 9,000 visits to homes of patients.

Patients have made over 7,900 visits to the Center for doctors' and nurses' advice.

SUB STATIONS

In addition to the regular daily clinics at the main station on 79th street, doctors' or nurses' clinics are held on four afternoons each week at the rooms of the Baby Health Station on East 96th street; on one morning and one afternoon at the rooms of the New York Diet Kitchen Association at 2nd avenue and 65th street; on four afternoons at the Westley House Settlement, 59th street and the East River.

EDUCATIONAL WORK

The instruction of mothers is continually carried on by the nurses in their home visits and through the visits of patients to the Center where education in special problems is stressed. In addition printed leaflets of information are given to mothers.

Special classes in baby care are held weekly and are crowded with eager listeners. The total attendance to date is over 1,200--most of them mothers with first babies.

WORKING HOUSEKEEPERS

Our "working housekeepers" have served for more than 270 days in more than 50 homes with new-born babes. They remain usually from six to nine days on a case, but always until a relative or the mother is able to take charge.

CO-OPERATING AGENCIES

Over twenty agencies in our district co-operate with us, including the Manhattan Maternity Hospital, the Henry Street Settlement, the New York Diet Kitchen and Flower Hospital, many day nurseries, settlements, churches and individual doctors and midwives.

FACTS WE MUST NOT FORGET

It is still true that more mothers in this country die of causes due to childbirth than from any other cause except tuberculosis. The United States census reported for 1918 a startling increase in the number of these deaths.

Every mother's death means a broken home and usually motherless children. The death rate among motherless children has been shown in one city to be three times as high as the general average and in another city five times as high.

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Click to see graph

How Long Shall We Keep

"THE TALL BLACK MONUMENT"

 

IMMEDIATE NEEDS

The nursing service must be extended until we have reached the 7,000 births occurring in this district every year.

Several additional substations should be opened at once so that mothers may more easily reach us, and that closer relationships may be established with various nationalities.

The working-housekeeper service should be enlarged to meet the need in homes where the mother must go to the hospital, or where there is no one to care for the mother, new-born baby and other small children.

Educational work must be extended to induce mothers to come to us early in pregnancy, and to teach them the proper care of themselves and babies. Classes for demonstration of baby care should be increased in number.

==========

 

AT THE CLUB HOUSE

on

Thursday, March 11th, at 3 30 P.M.

DEMONSTRATION

of

Maternity Center Work

Educational exhibit showing how mothers are taught proper care of themselves; baby care-including the bath; work of the substation explained; schemes of neighborhood co-operation; immediate needs.

The secretary will report on Post-War Plans for Maternity Protection in France and England.






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