The Vinita daily chieftain. [volume] (Vinita, Indian Territory [Okla.]) 1902-1913, 1912-12-23
CH|LDREN'S BUREAU
FIELD ENQUIRY
Department of Commerce And Labor,
Washington


The Children's Bureau has completed
the preliminary work upon its first
field Inquiry which is to be launched
immediately after Christmas. 1t will
take up the subject first mentioned in
the law creating the bureau, namely.
infant mortality, or the deaths of
babies under one year of age.
Statisticians in Europe and America
have recently called attention to the
astounding loss of infant life and to
the Importance of making careful in
lquiries into its causes. The death rate
for the total population is slowly but
surely declining, that is adults are liv-
ling on the average longer lives, but
the death rate for babies less than one
year old is not declining and, in the
words of Sir George Newman, This is
the broad fact which constitutes the
problem to be considered
Dr. Cressy l.. Wilbur chief statisti-
clan for vital statistics of the United
States Census Bureau, estimates that
at least three hundred thousand babies
die annually in the United States,
which means that one baby out of every
eight dies before it is year old
In certain unfavorable localities this
rate is much greater. Babies in poor
'neighborhoods in an American city,
for which figures are available, die at
the rate of 379 per one thousand babies
under one year of age, while the cor.
responding rate for babies in the good
residence quarters of the same city is
1856, or less than one-half as great. The
New Zealand death rate for babies.
however, is but 6S per one thousand
births.
The difference between tn infant
death rates for the most-favored and
the least-favored city babies supports
the statements made by many authori.
ties that at least half of the babies who
die under one year of age could be
saved by the application of methods
with which we are already as a people
well acquainted. Thus OF the 3Oo,O ,Oo0
babies dying in the United States year
ly at least 100000 could be saved. The
aim should be, of course, to reduce our
rates to those lowest terms of which at
present New Zealand is the best ex-
ample. Hence the Children's Bureau
has taken the position that it is funda-
mental to the work which it is ordered
by law to perform to endeayor to show
why babies perish in such numbers.
The inquiry will have some new fea-
lures. 1t will be the first intensive
house to house inquiry conducted by
the United States government that is
based upon birth records rather than
upon death records. It's method will
be to secure a list of all the children
born within given year in the COM
munities under consideration and to
trace each child through its first year
Of life, if it survives so long.
The schedule has been very care
FULLY prepared to cover the questions
of housing, feeding, and care of the
child, the milk supply, industrial and
economic condition of the parents, san
tary conditions of the neighborhood.
etc, in fact the hygenic surroundings
If the child.
The method of this inquiry will nee
9ssarily be that of visits to parents by |
he women experts of the bureau. 1t |
will be seen that this is an absolutely |
democratic inquiry, involving as it does
lists to every mother of baby born
within given period of time. 1t seeks
o discover the favorable conditions
children who survive and
t is believed that its whole purpose is
uch as to enlist the good will of the
Mothers of the country who will wei
ONE an opportunity to cooperate with
he government in trying to save in
ants lives. The value of the field
york done by the agents must neces.
arily depend upon the cordial co-opera-
ion given them by all mothers in the
communities which they study. The
ureau has already received most cor
ial assurances of sympathy and CO. !
peration from mothers and health au-
horities in various parts of the eoun-
ry.
At first smaller towns outside the
arge urban areas will be chosen. so
hat each city can be complete study
4 itself, comparable with later studies
nd furnishing types of varying social
nd industrial conditions.
All the cities in which this inquiry
iii be carried on have not yet been {
elected It is certain, however, that
{ present cities can only be studied /,