Even under the very best circumstances there are many lying-in cases among weakly women where the mother’s state is such as to render it necessary for a ‘crying’ infant to be washed and dressed elsewhere than in its mother’s ward. These infants are best washed, in that case, in the scullery, which must be so arranged that infants can be washed and dressed without being exposed to a thorough draught, and that nurses and babies may not be hustling one another.
There must be a good press in each scullery. A supply of clean linen and other necessaries will have to be kept in each press in each scullery.
The slop-sink and other appurtenances must be arranged so as to make allowance for the fact that the going backwards and forwards for water, hot and cold, or to empty slops in a lying-in institution—where half the patients can do nothing for themselves, and the other half (the mothers) are supposed to be ready for discharge when they can go to the ward offices for themselves—is more than it is in general hospitals.
Fixed baths are not necessary. But there must be means for filling with hot water moveable infants’ baths at all hours at a moment’s notice, since an infant’s life often depends on immediate facility of hot-water bathing.
And this besides the daily regular night and morning washing of infants.
There must be also a moveable bath for each ward for the lying-in women, with the means for supplying it with hot and cold water and for emptying it. Lying-in patients are not able to use either fixed baths or lavatory.
Glazed earthenware sinks should alone be used, as being by far the safest and cleanest.
9. How to Ventilate Lying-in Wards.
The best ventilation is from opposite windows. Each window should be in three parts, the third or uppermost to consist of a flap hung on hinges to open inwards and throw the air from without upwards.
Inlet valves, to admit fresh air, and outlet shafts, to emit foul air, must be added to complete the natural ventilation.