Economic and financial section > Problem of nutrition

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Austria.
In Vienna, expectant mothers, if they or their families are on the
welfare register, receive coupons for cheap milk (half a litre at 10 groschen
instead of the usual 23 groschen), from the seventh month of pregnancy
onwards. There are at present 600 women in receipt of such coupons.
(Certain additional particulars will be found in Chapter III below,
page 107.)
Belgium.
In Belgium, the Law of September 5th, 1919, instituting the “ Oeuvre
nationale de 1’enfance ” (National Child Welfare Organisation), made
provision for the feeding of very young children (milk dispensaries),
and also for the establishment of canteens for mothers, at which a
rational and substantial meal was supplied to nursing and expectant
mothers in indigent circumstances. These nutritional institutions were
a continuation of the organisations set up during the war period, when
nutrition in general was conspicuously defective. Their fortunes
fluctuated as the attendance at these institutions gradually dwindled
and in many places finally disappeared altogether. The canteens for
mothers were wound up in 1927.
The only organisations which continued to operate were a certain
number of milk dispensaries ; but these, too, lost much of their value.
At present, they still continue in certain places, but in a slightly different
form. Milk is no longer distributed there, its place being taken by
“ special diets ” prepared in accordance with the prescriptions of the
medical officers in charge of infant clinics.
In recent years, great efforts have been made, with satisfactory
results, to enable the population, and the mothers on the registers of
the infant clinics in particular, to procure properly treated and supervised
milk.
The supervision is exercised by the State services and those of the
larger communes, and applies first to producers and secondly to retailers.
Laboratory analyses make it possible to supply pure milk to institutions
and individuals, either through the milk retailers or through the
numerous dairies, the installation of which is constantly improving.
As a special contribution towards the welfare of children suffering as
a result of the economic crisis, the “ Oeuvre nationale de 1’enfance ”
has authorised the infant clinics to give such clients as have the best
claims gifts of foodstuffs during the winter months, of which condensed
milk is one of the chief.
United Kingdom.
(a) In England and Wales, the local maternity and child welfare
authorities (which comprise the councils of all administrative counties
and county boroughs and of certain non-county boroughs, urban
districts and rural districts) have power, by virtue of the Maternity
and Child Welfare Act, 1918, to make arrangements, with the sanction
of the Minister of Health, for providing extra nourishment for expectant