310 AFFILIATED SOCIETIES 



special reference to the fitness of the foster mother for the care 

 of an infant. However, the selection of the home and the visitation 

 of the child after placement is done by the regular visitors of the 

 Society and not by trained nurses. 



CHRISTIAN SERVICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA, 

 Wichita, Kansas 



One hundred and eighteen babies under one year of age have been 

 cared for, in private or in temporary homes by the League, during 

 the past three years. The League has started to build a model nursery 

 for babies. The organization employs five secretaries and field 

 workers. 



COMMITTEE ON INFANT SOCIAL, SERVICE, 

 Boston 



The Committee on Infant Social Service of the Women's Municipal 

 League has for a year and a half employed a nurse whose whole time 

 is devoted to the care of pregnant women. This work was begun as 

 an experiment to see if the efficiency of the next generation could be 

 improved by care from its very beginning. The work is not intended 

 to be charitable, but entirely educational in its aim, and the women 

 have been simply visited and advised as any patient is advised by 

 her private physician. 



The average length of time that the women have been under the care 

 of the League is less than three months. In some cases it has been six, 

 seven or even eight months; under the latter circumstances of course 

 much more can be accomplished. 



In the year and a half the nurse has cared for over six hundred 

 women. Each case has been visited once a week, or at the latest once 

 in ten days, with the exception of a few women living rather far away 

 who were in good health, in such cases sometimes a fortnight has 

 elapsed between the visits. If anything was wrong with any patient 

 the visits have been made as frequently as was necessary even if that 

 proved to be every day. 



The system is a very simple one. The nurse calls in the morning 

 at the hospitals and is given the names of the patients who have regi- 

 stered since her last visit; especially those to be taken in as house 

 patients. She then goes to see them in their homes, explains her 

 work and makes friends with them, and arranges to visit them during 

 the coming week. 



No responsibility is taken by the nurse beyond the simplest pre- 

 scriptions; plenty of water both inside and out, fresh air, rest when 

 possible, not too hard work, and if necessary cascara, nothing more. 

 If the difficulties of the patient do not yield to these measures, she 

 is sent to a hospital or dispensary for treatment. More than half of 

 the women have needed advice and have markedly improved under 

 the nurse's care, and about 8 1-3 per cent, of the cases have shown 

 symptoms of serious illness, mostly eclampsia. Forty-seven have 

 been threatened with this disease, some few cases which were suffici- 

 ently dangerous to require a stay of some days at the hospital, the 

 majority, however, were treated at home, and in no case has the 

 disease developed, with the exception of one woman, who, though 

 referred to us, refused to be visited. 



