How to use a Booklet of Mother and Child Health

Abstract

A Booklet of Mother and Child Health which is provided by the Maternal and Child Health Law, to every pregnant mother for recording health histories through pregnancy to school entrance, might play a very important role in the field of public health practice, when it is used more practically.
Recently, there are various kinds of health booklets for recording one's health history such as a booklet for school children and students and for chronic diseases in the fields of school and occupational health.
The author discussed records in the booklet utilizing the mother's memory with regard to health histories, in order to establish a more useful method of application to maternal and child health practice.
The results are as follows.
1) Most mothers still keep their booklets even when their children are in school.
2) The columns for delivery in the booklet are filled by doctors or midwives, however, those for mothers' voluntary recording are almost blank.
3) The author demonstrated interesting evidence that the more often mothers have opportunities to use the booklets, the more carefully they keep them.
4) The rate of filling in columns is related not only to mothers' but also to doctors', public health nurses' and midwives' understanding of the significance of the booklets.
5) He pointed out that mothers' memories of their children's health histories, though including important episodes, are not so clear.
6) He also pointed out that mothers' evaluations of their children's developments are not so exact, especially, in cases when the mothers evaluate children developing poorly.