The Press Tuesday, June 17, 1924 Maternal Mortality.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18101, 17 June 1924, Page 6

The Press Tuesday, June 17, 1924 Maternal Mortality.

At a meeting at the week-end of the Council of the British Medical Association, representative of the whole Dominion, a vehement protest was made against what were described as " alarming and exaggerated state- " ments" on the subject of maternal mortality. We take it that the criticism of the B.M.A. was directed chiefly against speeches made recently on tho public platform by the Ministers of Health and his Departmental assistants. There was nothing that could be called "alarming" in the report of the Kelvin Commission, and although some drastic reforms were recommended no statements were made that were not based on evidence, laboriously collected and' long and earnestly pondered. The charge of exaggeration could not therefore apply to the members of the Commission, nor to the general endorsement of the report in the editorial columns of the public Press; and before it can be called a reasonable criticism of the speeches of Sir Maui Pomare, Dr. Valintine, and Dr. Truby King, the B.M.A. must show why the community should not be disturbed when the maternal mortality rate is twice as high in New Zealand as in the United Kingdom. We sincerely hope', of course, that the position is.better than the Department rep resents it to be. The B.M.A. i 3 particularly incensed by the figures quoted by Dr. Truby King in his attack' on '' precipitate midwifery''—perhaps justifiably incensed. Since there can be no way of estimating the amount of damage done by the unnecessary use of chloroform and instruments, any figures, given can be only approximate, and may easily be very far from th:» truth. It must be said also'that where chloroform is not used as an aid to violent interference with Nature, but merely as a protection to civilised woman against the agony that Nature so often makes her endure as a penalty for civilisation, it has the same justification as in surgery. But we are still confronted by this disturbing fact that 150 New Zealand women are dying every year in childbirth, and, even on the B.M.A. figures, that nearly half of these die of bloodpoisoningi We know also that tho majority of babies are born in nursing homes which cannot, however carefully they are conducted, provide a sufficiently strong defence against the possibilities of infection. And it is not an attack on the medical profession, or a stronger attack than can be and constantly is made on every other profession, to say that it necessarily includes in its ranks men who are tempted by technical skill or mercenary considerations or mere human iinpatience to hasten a physiological prscess without much regard to the consequences. It is most undesirable, as the Commission itself emphasised, that the campaign for reform should be conducted in Buch a way as to alarm expectant mothers. When the worst has been said about maternal risks, the fact remains' that the vast majority of women bear children normally, the vast majority of medical men go from one year's end to another without encountering a case of septicemia In so far as the B.M.A. protest is intended to emphasise those two facts it is to be welcomed. But we hope it will not be used as an excuse for dolaying the gradual elimination of private maternity homes, or to encourage local bodies to delay spending money on maternity wards at general hospitals, or to provide a screen for vain or careless or mercenary practitioners. The bearing of children is not by any means the desperate adventure that alarmists would make women suppose; but it is no longer so free of risk in New Zealand as it ought to be, and the. duty of the Health Department is to remove all risks that are avoidable.