| Summary of Cases Delivered in the Lying-in Wards of Liverpool Workhouse 1868–9–70. | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Years | Total | |||
| 1868 | 1869 | 1870 | ||
| Number of women attended in labour: natural | 511 | 443 | 442 | 1,396 |
| Number of women attended in labour: premature | 4 | 1 | 15[[12]] | 20 |
| Number of women attended in labour: married | 164 | 159 | 142 | 465 |
| Number of women attended in labour: single | 351 | 285 | 300 | 936 |
| Males born | 295 | 223 | 228 | 746 |
| Females born | 216 | 225 | 223 | 664 |
| Mothers who died in or from labour | 2[[13]] | 2[[14]] | 2[[15]] | 6 |
| Children born dead | 79 | 58 | 58 | 195 |
| Women confined at or above 40 years of age | 8 | 4 | 9 | 21 |
| Women confined at or below 20 years of age | 105 | 98 | 81 | 284 |
| Greatest age at delivery | 46 | 42 | 44 | |
| Youngest age at delivery | 17 | 16 | 15 | |
| Number of first confinements | 223 | 207 | 105 | 535 |
| Twin births | 1 | 5 | 7 | 13 |
| Triplets | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Labours followed by flooding | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| Labours accompanied by convulsions | 2 | 1 | 2 | 5 |
| Labours accompanied by retained placenta | 3 | 0 | 3 | 6 |
| Forceps cases | 7 | 4 | 4 | 15 |
| Craniotomy cases | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Version cases | 2 | 0 | 1 | 3 |
| Presentations: head | 484 | 426 | 425 | 1,335 |
| Presentations: breech | 22 | 12 | 15 | 49 |
| Presentations: feet | 4 | 10 | 11 | 25 |
| Presentations: arm | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Subjoined is also a Table of the deaths and causes of death year by year for 13 years:—
| Summary of Deaths and Causes of Death in the Lying-in Wards of Liverpool Workhouse for Years 1858–1870. | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1858 | 1859 | 1860 | 1861 | 1862 | 1863 | 1864 | 1865 | 1866 | 1867 | 1868 | 1869 | 1870 | |
| Morbus cordis | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||||||||
| Pneumonia | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||||||||||
| Puerperal peritonitis | 1 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 2 | 2 | 3 | ||||||
| Phthisis | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||||||||
| Debility | 2 | ||||||||||||
| Epileptic convulsions | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | |||||||||
| Puerperal fever | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||||||||||
| Jaundice | 1 | ||||||||||||
| Phlegmasia dolens | 1 | ||||||||||||
| Exhaustion | 2 | 1 | |||||||||||
| Relapsing fever | 1 | ||||||||||||
| Measles | 1 | ||||||||||||
| Inquest | 1 | ||||||||||||
| Laryngitis | 1 | ||||||||||||
| Obstructed labour | 1 | ||||||||||||
| Typhus, post partum | 1 | ||||||||||||
| Hæmorrhage | 1 | 1 | |||||||||||
| Uræmia | 1 | ||||||||||||
| Rupture of uterus | 1 | ||||||||||||
| Bright’s disease | 1 | ||||||||||||
| Invaginated bowel | 1 | ||||||||||||
| Instrumental labour (fever) | 1 | ||||||||||||
| Metritis | 1 | ||||||||||||
| Dropsy | 1 | ||||||||||||
| Deaths | 7 | 5 | 9 | 7 | 7 | 2 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Approximate deliveries:[[16]] average estimated at 500 per ann. | 450 | 625 | 511 | 443 | 442 | ||||||||
Let us now see what the arrangements are for this class of cases. The lying-in department of Liverpool workhouse is situated in a wing of the female general hospital, contiguous to the surgical wards. The wing has windows along the two opposite sides and at one end; but the space is so divided off by partitions as to form five wards, each of which has windows along one side only. The wards are allotted in the following manner:—
Two of them, opening into each other, and facing the same way, contain each twelve double beds, affording accommodation for 24 inmates per ward, 48 in all, at 345 cubic feet per inmate. These two wards are devoted to the reception of pregnant women before delivery. The opposite half of the wing is divided into two wards, corresponding to the two pregnant wards; one of these is the delivery ward, and contains seven beds, at nearly 1,200 cubic feet per bed.
Entering from this delivery ward is the lying-in ward, lighted by windows at the end. This ward contains 14 beds, at 900 cubic feet per bed. The other ward, entering from the delivery ward in the same line, is for convalescents, and contains eleven beds, at 762 cubic feet per bed. The W. C.’s, &c., are between the wards in the wing, in a very objectionable position.
For these and the following details I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. Barnes, who also supplied me with the statistics abstracted on Table V.
The following is the routine management of this establishment:—
All the wards are lime-washed three or four times a year. They are shut up and fumigated after the occurrence of any serious case of illness. The floors are washed daily.
The beds in the pregnant, lying-in, and convalescent wards, are generally all or most of them occupied; but the number of occupied beds in the delivery ward rarely exceeds four or five.