HOME TREATMENT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 74, 29 March 1933, Page 10

HOME TREATMENT.

CHLOROFORM IN MATERNITY.

(By PERITUS.)

It has long been regretted by mothers that midwives are not permitted to use an anaesthetic in confinements. Now, by the suggestion of an English authority, capsules, containing 20 drops of chloroform, have been issued to doctors for trial purposes to ascertain if a dose of this amount given at intervals is as useful as it is 6afe.

Miss E. M. Pye, president of the Midr wives' Institute, finds that even this very small quantity of chloroform makes the mother less sensitive to pain, prevents her from inhibiting voluntary efforts, and enables her to sleep between pains. Dr. J. S. Fairbairn believes it to bo incumbent on the medical profession to work 'out some means of giving analgesia that can be used by the midwife, and will' suffice to ease the final pangs of childbirth without interfering with normal parturition and without risk to mother and child, and therefore welcomes a full trial of. the capsules. Mr. L. C. Rivett from his experience regards this method aa safe and foolproof, and trusts that before long it will bo available to all midwives.

Many years ago Dr. Playfair used a mixture of chloroform and eau do Cologne, dropping 30 drops of. this on a flannel mask at long intervals, or only when actually needed. The patient held the'mask herself and when "going off" under light anaesthesia she would drop the mask and only take it up again when fully conscious and wishing for more anaesthetic.

As most nurses have been using morphia and "sleeping powders"' on their own responsibility for so long, it hae seemed unnecessary to many of ns that trustworthy and experienced midwivea should be held incapable of controlling inhalation anaesthesia. I have read that in no recorded confinement has a patient yet died as a result of the use of chloroform. It is probable that if this doling out of chloroform in breakable capsules in found advantageous that a special mask for inhaling purposes will be needed.