Iowa
Old Press
Daily Freeman Journal
Hamilton County, Iowa
May 31, 1918
Weigh Babies Here Next Week - Arrangements Completed to
Start the Campaign of Weighing and Measuring Babies in Webster
City.
It is a Nationwide Movement - Is Part of Plan to Save 100,000
Lives in Year. The Women in Charge
Block sergeants have practically completed the canvass of the
city in the interest of the child welfare campaign, and 367
children up to five years of age have been registered for the
weighing and measuring test next week. Dr. Mary Nelsen-Hotchkiss,
county chairman for the national children’s year program and
Mrs. F. E. Willson, city chairman, with the aid of twenty six
committee members have the preliminary work so well under way
that the actual weighing and measuring will start Monday.
Permission has been given for the committee to use Dr. E. E.
Richardson’s office on Willson avenue for the one central
weighing and measuring station. This provides exceptionally
convenient headquarters, as the rest room in the same building
will take care of the mothers and babies who may have to wait a
short time for their turn. A schedule will be arranged for the
children on a certain street to be measured on a designated day,
when the block sergeant of that street will be in attendance.
This feature eliminates congestion or confusion of many babies
being present at the same time.
The Block Sergeants
The block sergeants, appointed by the chairman in charge, and the
districts in which they have already canvassed, are as follows:
North of Third street- Mrs. Etta Young, Mrs. Elva Howard.
West Third street- Miss Grace (cut off)
Dubuque street- Mrs. Frank Wetkavski
East of the river- Mrs. O. C. Buxton, Miss Emma Glasgow
Hamilton county’s good fortune in having a doctor in charge
of the campaign in the county makes it unnecessary to require the
assistance of another physician.
A Welfare Inventory
This weighing and measuring test is a spring inventory of the
welfare of the nation’s children. Weight and height are a
rough index of the health of the growing child, and the test will
show individual parents and communities just how each child
compares with the average. Follow up work will be planned to fit
the needs shown by the test, and will continue throughout the
children’s year. Mothers and fathers must realize how
vitally war time conditions effect the welfare of their children
if 100,000 lives are to be saved during the year.
First of all, the test can give parents an indication of the
health of their own children. In addition, it can provide a basis
for judging how adequately the community is guarding all its
children. The test can thus offer a starting point for bettering
the conditions which affect children’s welfare. Some adverse
conditions individual parents can remedy; others demand community
action; but the children’s bureau believes that in one way
or another, children must be given increased protection if the
baby death rate is to be reduced here as it was in England during
the second (cut off) of the war.
[transcribed by J.M., February 2014]