Preventive medical services for mothers and infants or "Tipat Halav" (Mother & Child clinics) - as they have been known since the earliest times in Eretz Yisrael (pre-statehood Israel) - have been based over many years on a tradition of quality service that assures public health in Israel. This paper presents the policy and services over the years and highlights its contribution to the development of preventive medicine in Israel. This is due to the renewed debate concerning the existence of preventive services within the structure of the health system, and also for the sake of historical truth. The material presented here is based on the examination of documents and research studies conducted within the medical services in years that were fateful for public health in Israel. Two medical institutions - Hadassah and Clalit Health Services (known as Kupat Holim Clalit until 1995) - laid the foundations for the health system in Eretz Yisrael at a time when health-promoting measures consisted of no more than treating illness and preventing infections and the spread of epidemics. In the years before statehood in 1948, mortality rates in Eretz Yisrael were falling. Infant mortality, had declined to 48 deaths per 1,000 live births, was one of the world's lowest rates. It was a significant improvement, since in 1927, for example, infant mortality in Eretz Yisrael had reached 108 per 1,000 live births - one of the world's highest rates at the time. These dramatically improved statistics resulted from the development of Jewish health services in Eretz Yisrael during the British Mandate period. With the declaration of Israel's independence, Hadassah and Kupat Holim Clalit were the chief factors supplying neonatal services in Israel. Following statehood, the Ministry of Health started acting as the state organ that supervised all those entities. In the 1990s, following the recommendations of the Netanyahu Committee that had been appointed to examine the health system, and according to whose recommendations the State Health Law was legislated in 1995, it was decided to transfer preventive personal medical services (Mother & Child) to the various health funds, and to leave the Ministry of Health with a purely supervisory role. In the final decade of the previous century, and in the early years of the present one, that same recommendation was repeated by additional committees and other professional bodies but has still not been implemented.