DESCRIPTION OF PROJECT

Abstract

IN 1929 the senior author initiated the "Center for Research in Child Health and Development" as a research activity of the newly organized Division of Child Hygiene at the Harvard School of Public Health. Subsequently, this Division became the Department of Maternal and Child Health. This "Center" was organized to provide staff and facilities for the periodic and broadly oriented follow-up of individual children from birth throughout childhood and of their mothers during pregnancy. The term "Center" was then used because the project was conducted in a building outside the School with the co-operation of the Children's Hospital, the Boston Lying-in Hospital, the Forsyth Dental Infirmary for Children and members of their respective staffs. Early in 1930 the first prospective mother was enrolled at the Boston Lying-in Hospital for study of her family and the course and outcome of pregnancy. The program carried out at the hospital was designed to provide background for the subsequent enrollment of her infant at birth for continuing periodic studies during early childhood. The initial plans were gradually extended in respect to breadth of studies and the length of periodic follow-up was extended throughout adolescence and included a terminal, more comprehensive eighteenth-year examination. In 1939 the last mother was enrolled during pregnancy and in 1956 the last child still being followed was discharged because of having completed the terminal examination. One hundred and thirty-four children, 67 boys and 67 girls, were followed to 18 years. These constitute the Maturity Series upon which the present group of reports is based. The nature of the studies originally carried out under this project and the progress made between 1930 and 1938 were described in a Monograph published by the Society for Research in Child Development, hereinafter referred to as Monograph I. This dealt in considerable detail with the children enrolled and their families, with the methods of selection and follow-up, with the composition and operations of the multidisciplinary staff and with the methodologies and techniques then employed in the collection and recording of data.