Growing-up in Newcastle- upon-Tyne

The Present Role of the General Practitioner in the Medical Care of Children

“…The problems of clinical method experienced in general practice paediatrics are perhaps best summarized by a quotation from Miller and Court's (1960) Growing up in Newcastle on Tyne:…”

Family diagnosis: research methods and their reliability for studies of the medical-social unit, the family.

“…Blood pressure measurements have been shown to vary from 22 per cent for diastolic to 43 per cent for systolic pressure readings between different observers,5 reading of chest x-rays by 32 per cent between different readers, and by 5.2 per cent by same individuals on a blind repeat reading of the same film. 6 Results of routine laboratory analysis varied by 20 per cent in the same sample sent to different laboratories. 7 In one of the best documented studies of variation between different interviewers taking a standard medical history by questionnaire (in the same room and same duration of interview), there was a variation of from 13 per cent to 41.…”

Relationship between mother's age and health care received by the firstborn child

“…are quite different categories in both sociological and obstetric terms,'' but there is little else which refers to the differences in attention which mothers of different ages pay to their child's health. Many sources report that the first child is taken more often to infant and toddler clinics, with regularity falling off a t age 1 or 2, but with no reference to the age of the mother (Douglas, 1948;Douglas and Bloomfield, 1958;Acheson, 1962;Miller et al, 1960;Spence et al, 1954;Madge, 1983;Blaxter, 1981).…”

“…There is a widely held view that new mothers, lacking in prior experience and hence more anxious about symptoms with which they are unfamiliar, are more concerned about the health and well-being of their first born than they are about later born children (Douglas, 1964;Douglas and Bloomfield, 1958;Miller et al, 1960;Steiner and Nelligan, 1983). This view is as common today as it was when the National Child Development Study was initiated.…”