With Gosford Hospital marking its 80th anniversary recently, celebrations sparked memories of the big role the Country Women’s Association (CWA) played in looking after the health of Central Coast mothers and babies before the hospital opened.
CWA branches began to open on the Central Coast at the start of the 1930s, before the maternity ward was established, with the focus on establishing baby health centres.
In 1932, Gosford CWA opened rooms in at the Railway and Tramway Institute, close to Gosford station, offering a restroom for visiting mothers, and sometime later this also included a baby health centre.
A part-time mothercraft nurse was employed to look after the health of the babies, and mothers came from all over the Central Coast, either by ferry or train, bringing their babies to be checked.
In 1936, Gosford CWA raised enough money to build their own rooms on the corner of Gertrude and Donnison Sts which included a baby health centre.
The number of mother and baby visits steadily increased over the years and by 1972, two doctors and two sisters of the Maternal Health Department were employed, examining about 8,000 babies a year.
The Woy Woy branch had its own baby health centre, opened in December 1940.
Some years later, the Health Department took over many of the CWA baby health centres.
The establishment of the CWA baby health centres proved to be very successful in reducing infant mortality by nearly 50% in NSW.
Remember mum taking my baby brother to the CWA at woy woy to see the health nurse on various occasions this was in the 1950’s.
I still have the little booklet that has the weight of my eldest daughter, weighed every week as it was a chance to talk to other mothers. We only had one car and my husband used to take it to work.