What shall we do with unmarried mothers who are unfitted for housework?
Is it ever advisable to separate the child from a normal mother?
Is institutional or private care best for a pregnant girl and under what circumstances is each preferable?
What shall we do with pregnant girls from other states or countries?
The conference was pretty fully agreed upon the policies of treatment that follow.
It is advisable to keep mother and child together where possible if the mother is in any way capable of bringing up the child. In cases where the mother is unfitted for domestic service it may be decidedly wiser to place her where she is happier and more efficient, in a factory, for instance. But even here financial responsibility for the baby, and at least weekly visits to the child, should be insisted upon.
It is desirable to send back to the states or countries from which they come girls who arrive here pregnant in order that each section may develop care for its own unmarried mothers. Although this may mean old-fashioned care in the individual case because of the lack of modern agencies and institutions in places from which the girls come, it is one of the means of making localities that are not equipped to deal with such situations more alert to their responsibility.
It is difficult to determine in what cases individual care or institutional care is wise. Particularly wayward girls often need the discipline of an institution, while the more innocent type are not helped by association with those they are sure to be brought in contact with, even in institutions that take only first offenders.
Wherever there are not very positive reasons to the contrary, it is of great importance to tell a girl’s family of her approaching confinement in order to enlist their co-operation and to enable the girl to have the most natural and helpful relationships possible at a time when she needs every constructive influence to build up courage for her life ordeal and determination to keep her child and give it every opportunity within her power. Her family ought to be, and if properly approached and dealt with, often is, the social worker’s greatest asset in this effort.
It was discovered that little provision, other than that in almshouses, is made for people who have had cases of venereal disease, as the good private institutions caring for prospective mothers exclude, and naturally, such cases.