The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-08-15
.ENG[AND'S BABY
 DEATH RATE DOWN.
But It Still Runs From S9 to 126 Per 1000 in the
 COngeSted Centers
My MARGARET WALTER.

London, July 25.-Baby week is be- ing celebrated everywhere except in London this year. This is because the National Baby Week Council is con- 1 trolled by men and women who have the welfare of the baby in mind rather than the show they might make. Com petitions and campaigns were carried , on in towns where babies are worst off. or in towns where such rapid prog
 ress has been made in saving infant life in the last year that the only fit | ting anniversary was one of jubilat ton. It is in the north of England where babies have the worst time, where is-
 norance and prejudice are more gen
 erai. The English industrial towns are
 accusation-"just under a hundred to
 the thousand per cent deaths dur
 ing their first year of life.
 Last year saw a considerable drop
 in the infant death rate. It is now only
 S9 to the 1000. But even that is far
 in excess of what it ought to be in a
 civilized country, and one of the best
 guarantees that such conditions are
 now fast disappearing is that the
 mothers of the country have taken the
 matter in hand and are getting them selves educated and banding togethe.'
 for the better education of other wom
 en in way which augurs well for the
 future.
 A single example will illustrate this
 movement One of the results of Baby
 week last year was a campaign all ovc.'
 the country to collect funds for new welfare ,cHters, and one of the most
 popular funds was for the Mothers own Infant Welfare Center. This was collected in all the centers on cer- tain day throughout the country an1 came in mostly in penny and sixpenny cont .ibutions from regular attendants , of the enters.
 The sum realized was s1.200 and when 1t was found by the committee of mothers that it was sufficient to start a center, at once vote was taken to decide where 1t should be. The ma jority of the subs .riptions had come from London, where there are. Of course, more welfare centers and clin- ics than in any other district. How ever, it was decided by the mothers to open the center in the town where the greatest number of infant deaths hai occurred within the last three years
 This unenviable record is held by Burnley,a manufacturing town of 5S 900 inhabitants in the midlands, where the women all work in the mills In the years 1917, 1918 and 191s Burnley had an average infant nor tality of 126 per 900 and birth rate of only 143 per 1,oVo.
 An abandoned saloon was bought and turned with almost magic speed into i clinic and welfare .-.iter, which vii | henceforth be open every day in tht week to mothers with infants as we
 as small children.
 | The new center was opened by Mrs | H. A. L. Fisher. wife of the minister
 of education, who though herself un
 der 40. is one of the pioneers of infan 1 rescue work in England having her l self established the first free clin.,
 and baby center in Oxford fifteen year!
 ago
 All the furnishings of the Burnle,
 of science. and in connection there |
 a milk depot and playground. But th
 simple appointments. like curtains 1 rugs carpets and books, have all bee | contributed by the mothers themselves
 bought with money laid aside penn, by penny from meager allowances ant | made in the night watches. at the sac rifce of their own rest when the du | ties of the day were laid aside
 l Nothing better than the Burnle, | by center can express the power Q the baby campaign in this country. fo | only an ideal which had completel 1 dominated women all over the countrJ I could induce women who work all day l in mills and foundries. IS we'll as thos; who are burdened with the ugly prob lems of slum existence in London anc
 ne big towns, to dedicate every pa.
 ticle of their spare time to a worl
 which has not even the attraction oi
 change or recreation for them and only
 means extra drudgery and self-denial