New Britain herald., 1918-08-28
WATERBURY NOT 4
 GOOD BABY TOWN
Insanitary Conditions Interfere
 With Health of Growing Tots

1 cueEllNS means or preventing the
 deaths of little children in one of the l towns where conditions have been 1 greatly changed by the growth of war 1 industries are revealed in q report on 1 Waterbury, Connecticut, made public i by the Children's Bureau of the L. s. lDepartm of Labor. Even before l the war insanitary housing conditions. 1 imperfect civic provision for educat- | ing mothers in the care of their chil- | dren, indifference to the need of giv ing the many foreign born mothers the advice and help they need to make them assimilate American ways and customs have initiated to keep up the infant death rate which aver aged for the years 1910-1915 146.5 per thousand or about one death in every seven live births, which is nearly halt again the rate for the L. $. ReglStra- tiOn Area.
 But the rate was not uniformly high for all groups in the city. Two
 thousand one hundred and ninety
 seven babies born between June 1,
 1913, and May 31, 1914, were in
 cluded in the study. In each case a
 personal visit to the home was made,
 and the mother or if she were not
 living, the person who had the child
 in charge was interviewed Rich and
 poor, native and foreign born were
 alike included and every one of them
 willingly gave the information de-
 sired Two hundred and sixty-three
 of the babies had died before they
 were a year old. But of the babies
 of fathers who earned less than S450
 a year about one in six died during
 it's first year. whereas when the
 fathers yearly income was as much
 as $1,250 the death rate was greatly
 reduced, and about one baby in every
 fifteen died And a fifth of the
 births in Waterbury were in families
 where the father earned less than
 $45O a year. By far the largest
 number of fathers in this lowest in
 come group were employed in the
 factories. Waterbury is the largest
 brass and copper manufacturing city
 in the United States. The foreign
 born men were much more poorly
 paid than the natives. About third
 of the foreign born fathers earned less than $450 year, whereas of the
 natives only about a twentieth be-
 longed to this low paid group. Few foreign born fathers were earning as
 much as $1,050.
 But low income is not the only in- f1uence working for a high infant nor tality rate among the children of foreign born parents. The infant mOr- tality rate among the Lithuanians as d whole who form an important part of Waterbury'S population, is far higher even than that for the lowest income group to which many of them belong. Of the babies born to Lithuanian mothers more than one in five died be- fore it was a year old The babies of Irish mothers died at a slightly lower rate. As a whole the babies of foreign
 born mothers died at rate more than a third higher than that of the babies of native mothers.
 The report points out several req sons for this higher rate among the children of the foreign born. The foreign born mother has to contend against more dangers to her child's health than those that usually threat en children of fathers wose earnings are low. The isolation of the Iithuan~ ian group especially tends to keep the families from growing accustomed to their surroundings in this new country. Many of them have come from the free Outdoor life of the farm 10 wrestle with crowded tenement conditions. The Lithuanians show the largest per cent of babies fed artificially; they show also the largest per cent of infant deaths caused by improper feeding, the neglect that comes with irnorance of m odern hygiene poor housing. con- 0ined, it may 9oe with summer heat 1 against which other conditions have l left the babies unprotected.
 AS a whole Waterbury shows an in 1 fant death rate from preventa b1e di- i gestive diseases considerably higher | than that for the registration area 1 The fact that modern hygiene knows 1 how to prevent certain digestive dis ] eases of babies is used as an argument l for extending work that will give every l mother the knowledge without which ] she cannot protect the lives of her 1 ba bies.
 Waterbury has not ignored the need 1 for such civic work. It has a visiting 1 nurses association and since the sur vey was made by the children's bureau | the association has extended it's work. 1 Few of the Lithuanians, however, who , appear 10 be most in need of wise di- | rection and advice in adapting their 1 mode of living to the conditions in their adopted land. have aIailed them selves of the organizations services.
 The housing conditions in Water bury were seriously congested even 1 before the influx of war workers. Dis repair of buildings. inadequate and faulty plum bing, infrenuent and irreg- ular garbage collection. milk or food supply that is insufficient or impure must. the report states. he controlled ] by the city if it's citizens arc to bo l guarded from disease. Yet in 1914 ! Waterbury appropriated only about third of the recognized minimum for the work of it's health department and i in 1917 it appropriated even less per ca pita in spite of it's growing popula- tiOn. Even the greatly increased wages do not enable Waterbury's population