Date of Award
8-1938
Document Type
Undergraduate Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Science
Degree Discipline
Home Economics
Abstract
The mortality rate of mothers is of course a small percentage of the casualities that attend the efforts to renew our population in the face of a diminishing birth rate. In the United States 73,735 babies were born dead and another 70,000 died in the first year of life.
More than half of these deaths were caused by diseases or conditions that might have been prevented by proper prenatal diet, exercise and cleanliness.
As a student of nutrition and foods the writer's interest is mainly with the first means of prevention, i.e., the diet. In order that the reader may grasp the meaning of the subject in the light intended by the writer, the terms of the subject will be explained.
Diet as used in this thesis refers to all the materials taken into the body to provide for tissue building and repair, to produce heat and energy, to regulate body processes and to protect against deficiency diseases.
The term prospective mother as here used, means the pregnant woman or a woman during the childbearing period extending from conception to the birth of the infant.
The nursing mother is the woman after giving birth to the child who still gives her baby breast feedings.
From statistics and comments quoted in the foregoing paragraphs the writer feels certain that the topic, "The Significant Aspects of the Diet of Ten Negro Nursing and Prospective Mothers in Hempstead, Texas", will not fail to interest and arouse any individual who is interested in race progress and perpetuation. The figures as quoted were reports for all groups and races in this vast and hetrogenuous American population. But the writer feels certain that if the picture showed only the Negro group there would still be no fairer results and the percentages of maternal and infant mortality rates, as well as countless cases of suffering, might even be greater when studied alone.
Much of the suffering, untold misery and many of the deaths as well of Negro mothers never reach the census reports of the nation. And even more grave than this is the fact that their plight seems to be overlooked generally by race promoters. That Negro mothers, the perpetuators of our race, go on year after year ignorant of proper prenatal care and believing the same superstitions is an indictment against the promoters of race betterment and a challenge to social service workers, physicians, nurses and teachers every where.
It was with this in mind that the writer made a study of ten Negro mothers, nursing and prospective, in Hempstead, Waller County, Texas.
Committee Chair/Advisor
M. P. Williams
Publisher
Prairie View State College
Rights
© 2021 Prairie View A & M University
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Date of Digitization
8-12-2021
Contributing Institution
John B Coleman Library
City of Publication
Prairie View
MIME Type
Application/PDF
Recommended Citation
Singleton, O. M. (1938). Significant Aspects of the Diet of Ten Negro Nursing and Prospective Mothers in Hempstead, Texas. Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.pvamu.edu/pvamu-theses/232