Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1916-03-03
BABY WEEK PLANS
|. FOR ROCK ISLAND
Merchants to Cooperate With Visiting
Nurses Association in Proper
Observance.

Baby week throughout the nation
begins tomorrow and continues
through March IL and will be OBJ
served in Rock Island as it will be in
practically every other city and vii
lage Of the country. The merchants
have agreed to cooperate with the
Visiting Nurses association and to
make special displays of articles per-
tanning to babies, in their shop win
dows. The two department stores,
Young & McCombs and L. s. McCabe
& Co, have announced their intention
Of setting aside next Thursday as baby
day in their stores. In addition to
elaborate displays there will be speak
ers in both stores to tell of the proper
care of babies and of everything that
pertains to them.
Next Wednesday at the West End
Settlement mothers Jay program
will be given by the settlement to-
gether with the Visiting Nurses asso-
citation. Dr. Emily Wright will ad-
dress the mothers on baby welfare
work.
The national childrens bureau is
urging the two thousand and odd COM
munities which have asked the bureau
! for suggestions about the observance
| of baby week, to emphasize the op-
portunity it affords for extending per-
manent infant welfare work in each
community. The bureau is now al
welfare work carried on last year in
work upon an analysis of the infant
the 500 cities Of 10000 population OF
over. Although the statistical findings
are not yet ready for publication the
bureau offers the following brief pre-
liminary report about the types Of in.
FAINT welfare work which are found in
this country.
One hundred forty-one report hav.
ing one or more infant welfare sta
tons or centers to which mothers may
bring their babies for a physician's
advice about feeding and general hy.
giene. Such stations for well babies
are distinct from the older and more
generally established dispensary OF
clinic for sick babies. Most of these
infant welfare stations have nurses
who visit the mothers in their Homes
to see that the instructions in baby
hygiene given at the station are un
derstood and applied. And such in
structive home nursing is widely car
ried on by other agencies which d.
not attempt to maintain infant welfare
stations. Care and instruction fol
prospective mothers is reported as {
special branch Of their work by de
partments Of health or private agen
cies in 1872 cities. Only 40 nurses arr
reported for the entire country as de
voting their entire time to this pre-
natal work but there are a. large mum
Der who give to it some of their time
and there is a growing disposition tt
include systematic prenatal work a!
a part of the infant welfare activities
Careful supervision of the milk SUP
ply is a matter of fundamental i'm
portance. In many communities Their,
are special classes for teaching schoo
girls in the upper grades how to tax,
care of babies; in 80 states there ar,
laws requiring special treatment o
the infant at birth for the prevention
of blindness; and there is a CROWN;
realization in all sections of the coun
try of the Importance of enforcing
a complete registration Of births, as
fundamental necessity in any com
prehensive work for infant welfare.