Parents, Name Your Babies! Doctors, Register Births!

Raleigh, March 16—Warning is being sounded for the hundreth time by the state board of health that the law requiring births to be reported to the local registrar within five days must be complied with.

The latest violation and conviction reported to the state department is that of Dr. V.W. Legett of Hobgood, Halifax County. The department will not press the case it appearing that the failure to report births was an oversight or was due to negligence.

In this connection it is pointed out that a large per cent of the reports reaching the state department here do not show the names of the children. This is creating a condition that virtually destroys the purpose and intent of the law requiring that births be reported. When a report is made of a birth without a name for the child the records will merely show that on such and such a date a son was born to Mr. And Mrs. Blank. Son Blank in future years may find it extremely difficult to prove that he is the son.

Failure to affix names for babies is responsible for the condition. There has been a superstition that to name a child before it could walk would bring down upon the hapless heads of its parents bad luck. Health officials believe that the tots should be named early.

From the front page of The Hickory Daily Record, March 16, 1921