Title
Future trends in maternal and child health
Author
de Haas, J.H.
Nederlands Instituut voor Praeventieve Gezondheidszorg TNO
Publication year
1958
Abstract
An orientation of modern child care viewed in the light of the trend in Scandinavia and the Netherlands places the following concepts before us. Now that infant mortality has reached a level of twenty per thousand births, we have arrived at an important point in the development of child care. This fact forces us not only to form an impression of the past and present, but likewise to look to the near future. A relatively drastic reduction of child mortality is still possible, although it is less spectacular than in the past. The rates in the near future can be predicted. Now that serious illness and death in children have become a secondary problem– except for perinatal mortality, some acute diseases, some chronic illnesses and the problem of accidents–the essential task of child health care has become the active promotion of the health of the child in order to achieve an optimal development. The doctor, if he wishes to acquit himself properly of this task, should have some idea of socio‐biology and vital statistics, a knowledge of child development and experience in public health, of which maternal and child health is a part that is closely connected to other branches. More and more maternal and child health is integrated into public health. Continuity and coordination in maternal and child health should be assured from conception up to and including adolescence. The observation of growth and development of the individual child in its longitudinal trend from birth until adulthood is the ABC of modern child health. The new child health strives towards an optimal development of the child and thereby towards optimal conditions in family, school and society. The term “maternal and child health” expresses more clearly than “child hygiene” what social obstetrics and pediatrics attempt to achieve. The continuity which characterises the development of the child should be the basis for the organization of maternal and child health. The new orientation of child health adapts itself to modern conditions in a civilisation entering the atomic age. In their interdependence and their interrelationship research, evaluation of methods and organisation deserve to be adjusted towards this modern constellation which they have not yet sufficiently attained.
Subject
Human
CH - Child Health
Health
Children
Maternal
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DOI
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1651-2227.1958.tb07657.x
TNO identifier
878528
Source
Acta Paediatrica, 47 (4), 446-464
Document type
article