ATHLETIC FREEDOM.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 255, 28 October 1929, Page 14

ATHLETIC FREEDOM.

WOMEN PAYING THE PRICE?

LONDON DOCTOR'S VIEWS,

MORTALITY OF MOTHERS.

Increasing mortality among mothers has aroused national concern in Britain. It has been disclosed by a Ministry of Health Committee that "during the last ten years approximately 3000 mothers in England and Wales have died each year in giving birth to children, and the position is now little better than it was 20 years ago." The statement, has been made by a member of the committee, that "the main cause for the unnecessarily high death rate among mothers in childbirth is- the insufficient training of midwives and medical students." A leading medical man, interviewed by the "London Evening Standard," said: "To find that, although the number of births' has steadily decreased over a number of years, the percentage of deaths of mothers has increased is very disturbing. The natural question is: 'Why, with modern knowledge of hygiene and antisepsis, should such a state of affairs exist ?' "Three factors are responsible. First, women are paying a price for their greater freedom and their increased participation in athletics. I very much fear that their greater muscular development has an effect which is gradually making childbirth more difficult and dangerous. If this view is correct, the maternity deathrate will increase in spite of efforts to reduce it. "There is the increased weight of the child at birth to consider—an average increase of 21b per child at birth since 1914. As people ascend in the ciyilised scale, the more difficult does childbirth become. I should not care to state definitely that children are born with more brains, and consequently -with a larger head, but it is a' contingency which cannot be ignored. Take this weight factor in conjunction with the first one. It does not require expert knowledge to appreciate the dangers.

"Finally, ifc is indisputable that general medical practitioners are becoming less and less inclined to take midwifery eases. This is understandable, but it is a bad thing for the patients. It means that they are left more and more to the ministration of midwives, who, at their best, cannot be expected to do what a qualified surgeon can do.

"The suggestion that qualified midwives should be allowed to give injections of morphia and pituitrin fills me with apprehension. I consider the risk of such a procedure is too great. Drugs of this kind should only be administered by a nurse on instructions by the doctor and in his presence. "Changing anatomical structures, larger children, and less skilled attendance form a combination which cannot but produce serious results. The remedy is a social problem of great importance, which I do not attempt to solve."