Mary Beatrice Davidson Kenner
March 16, 2025
Dr. Marilyn Hughes Gaston
March 17, 2025
Reduced Infant Mortality
Dr. Sara Josephine Baker (1873-1945) was a pioneer in reducing the infant mortality rate in low-income parts of New York City.
At the beginning of the 20th century, about a third of the city’s infants were dying before the age of 5, many of them in tenement neighborhoods, which were packed with thousands of people within a square mile. A majority of the deaths experienced in those neighborhoods could have been prevented with education and proper inspections from the health department.
Dr. Baker was appointed as the director of the Bureau of Child Hygiene in 1908 to correct these problems. She focused on the poorest neighborhoods, sending nurses, educating mothers on hygiene, and setting up clean milk stations.
Her efforts helped reduce the child mortality rate by a considerable degree, with some estimating that she may have saved as many as 90,000 infants during her 30-year career.
Want to Read More?
- Fighting for Life
- The Growing Child
- Healthy Babies: A Volume Devoted to the Health of the Expecting Mother and the Care and Welfare of the Child
- Healthy Children: A Volume Devoted to the Health of Growing Child
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