Results of a Survey Undertaken in a Rural Area in Bengal in Maternity and Child Welfare

utilizing the facilities offered. This outlook is a natural one and deserves thoughtful consideration. Time has to be spared y the pregnant woman or mother from domestic duties to attend a prenatal or infant clinic. To ensure regular attendance, which is the only palculable safeguard of health, the woman, her husband, and perhaps mother-in-law also, must he made to feel that her regular absence from the house, the time expended and, in a rural area, the discomfort of a walk of perhaps two ^les or more each way, whatever the weather, j^e compensated for by the benefit derived from the visits. This means that even the crudest Programme must meet the important needs of the woman, be they for maintenance of health ?.r for control of abnormality. Lack of institutional facilities can therefore nullify the effects an otherwise efficient scheme. By the public, ln the early stages of a programme at least, success is not judged by the normal cases better pared for, but by the abnormal cases well handled. In maternal and infant care, it is on this platform that care and prevention meet, and Review of facilities must include review of the ocal provision for treatment, therapeutic or ?bstetrical. For this reason, from the administrator's point view, before a scheme is drawn up or further developments in an existing scheme are considered, these needs must be ascertained. This 13 Particularly true of an Indian rural area, for n?t only are the funds available for maternity and child welfare work likely to be small and so. require careful expenditure, but the standards 01 education, social habits, communications and ^edical facilities mav vary so widely within a distance of ten miles that the programme destined for area 1 A ' may leave the people of area ' B ' entirely unresponsive. The programme t? rnake ' touch ' must be realistic. The study of relatively small rural populai1Qns, e.p. of the size of the Union Board in "engal (10.000 to 15,000 population), therefore eornniends itself to the administrator responsible t?r the planning of a programme in maternal ar>d infant care. The figures on which such a plan would be based might however be much too small to satisfy the statistician when the question arises of assessing improvement effected by the maternity and child welfare service year by year. This raises a question of no small