The Hawera Star. TUESDAY, MARCH 8, 1927. MATERNAL MORTALITY.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 8 March 1927, Page 4

The Hawera Star.

TUESDAY, MARCH 8, 1927. MATERNAL MORTALITY.

Delivered every evening by 5 ooloek in Hawera, Manaia, Normanby, Okaiawa Elthatn, Mangatoki, Kaponga, Altm Hurloyville. Patea, Waverley. Mokoia Whaka.mara, Ohangai, Meremere. Frasei - Hoad and Ararata

Though the Minister of Health is able to report an encouraging fall in the maternal mortality rate, the unjileasant fact still remains that New Zealand, which occupies a better position than any other country in the world in regard to the rate ’of infantile mortality, suffers a heavier toll upon the lives of its mothers than England and Wales combined, or, to put it another way, fewer mothers succumb in the slums of Glasgow than in this Dominion, where conditions of living are so much better. The Health Department has shown during the last two years that it is fully awake .to the gravity of this position but it cannot effect an improvement without the cooperation of the people. Antenatal care is the one way of reducing the maternal death rate, but the establishment of facilities for the provision of such service must go hand-in-hand with the education of the people in the necessity for accepting the help that is proffered. The success that has attended the efforts of the Plunket Society offers striking proof of the wonderful improvement that can be brought about by the application of scientific principles to the task of rearing infants, but though New Zealand is rightly proud of the results achieved by the Society, and of the position it occupies among the nations of the world to-day in regard to the saving of infant life, we have to remember .that this position was not attained without, a struggle against prejudice. We have a reputation among students of infant welfare work of being a progressive people, ready to "accept and practise the teachings of those who have evolvjtr* cd', after a life-time of study, principles which ensure the health and virility of the new generation, but it must, appeal to those who watch our progress in this direction as being ' strangely inconsistent, that we, who have set new standards for the rest of the world in this direction, should lag so far behind other countries in our efforts on behaTf of the > mothers. The death rate of infants per thousand births in New Zealand for the period 1921-25 was 43, which compared more than favourably with the next best, those of Australia and Norway, 58 per ‘thousand, while it was incomparably better than that of Denmark (83 per thousand). But when we turn to the figures showing the maternal mortality rate, we have less reason to congratulate ourselves, for we find that Denmark leads the world with only 2.06 deaths per thousand from all puerperal causes, and even crowded England and Wales, with their areas of congested population, lost. 3.95 per thousand of their mothers. compared with New Zealand’s 5.0 per thousand for the same period. In view of the unfavourable position we occupy, there is no reason to wonder that the Health Department is turning its attention to the question of the maternal mortality rate —the wonder of it is that there has not been an insistent demand for attention to the problem many years ago, for at no time has our record in this respect boon a proud one, the rate having never fallen below 3.5 S per thousand throughout fifty years. The Health Department’s acknowledgment that all has not been done in the past that might have been done to remove this blot upon our record of progress, and its expressed determination to continue the good work it is doing notv and to extend its scope, is a most hopeful sign for the future, and if it combines those efforts with a determined campaign to rouse the people to a realsation of the need for placing the same trust in those who are working

on behalf of the mothers as is already accorded the Plunket Society in its work on behalf of the babies, we can look forward with some measure of confidence to the time when. knowledge, and facilities to give effect to it, will have brought us to a state of organisation that will warrant a claim that "vve do as much for our mothers as for our children.