ORIENTAL CARNIVAL.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19240, 2 August 1924, Page 13

ORIENTAL CARNIVAL.

There was an exceedingly large attend* anoe at His Majesty’s Theatre last evening, which spent an enjoyable time at the St. John Ambulance Association’s Oriental Carnival. The crowds which moved about the numerous gaily-decorated stalls and side-shows spent freely, and the returns were reported to be quite satisfactory. The banner for the most successful stall was won for the second time by Misses M‘Nab and Heley, who were in charge of the refreshment stall, St. John Ambulance division. The theatre itself was packed to witness the two highly commendable entertainments, “Japonotte” and “Divertissements,” and the performers received welldeserved appreciation for their efforts. There were many dancers who greatly patronised the cabaret in the Victoria Hall, and this proved a source of great pleasure. The carnival will be concluded this evening. MATERNAL MORTALITY, TO THE EDITOR. Sir, — In your reported summary of my remarks at the annual meeting of the Plunket Society occurs the following passage: “Without a doubt 100 lives of mothers oould b© saved every year in the dominion. For every 100 mothers who lost their lives in childbirth 1000 mothers were more or leas gravely damaged and 1000 babies wore more or less gravely damaged.” The omission of the word “unnecessarily” entirely alters the meaning—the above should read “lost their lives unnecessarily in childbirth.” From 150 to IGO of our mothers die annually in connection with diildbirth, and, as shown by the graphic diagram to which I pointed. Now Zealand, compared with Amsterdam, loses two and a-half to three times the proportion of mothers, and more than twice the proportion ’of babies in the first month of life. Tlio Dutch authorities draw attention to the amazing fact* that, while this is so, they lose more than twice as in any babies as we do from one month to 12 months of age. In summing up, the Dutch feel they have ©veiy reason to be proud of the results of their wonderfully effective service of midwivea, to whom almost all mothers are entrusted —tho doctors dealing only with abnormal or specially complicated cases. This they regard os their groat safeguard for _ mother and child, during the critical period when they are practically one and indivisible and stand of fall together—say, during delivery and until the baby is a few weeks of age. They admit that in regard to the care of the baby after the immediate risks of childbirth are over our New Zealand methods and results give them a lead and example which they ought to follow. The mothers and babies who are unnecessarily sacrificed or seriously damaged annually in Now Zealand, at and about the time of childbirth, are in the vast majority of oases victims of complex, artificial circumstances, for which the mother herself must share responsibility with the medical and nursing professions and, looking further bade, with our foolish ways of rearing, educating, and training girls without giving them any idea as to the essentials for healthy normal womanhood, or the slightest notion as to the duty of health and fitness as bearing on future wifehood and motherhood. The greatest immediate danger and damage to mother and child, at and about tho time of birth, has undoubtedly been the prevalence of what the greatest of obstetricians, Dr Matthew Duncan, called “meddlesome midwifery” from undue and reckless handling and examination of tho mother to the use of twilight sleep or chloroform, and forced rapid delivery through drugs, forceps, ate. Were the resorting to all such unnatural art)• ficial processes restricted to the very email minority of oases in iwhich their usd is justifiable or beneficent, one may be sure there would result a rapid and welcome fall in our stillbirths, maternal deaths, and deaths of babies at and about the time of If there were no such things in the world as microbes or sepsis, it would be incumbent on us to reduce to a minimum the protraction of labour by Twilight Sleep, etc., or its sudden termination by forceps or other artificial moans. Until then, large numbers of mothers and children will continue to bs damaged by undue delay, or by grave mechanical injuries to their internal organs, inflicted in the course of forcible delivery—and tho minds of many children will suffer along with their bodies. This; is ho new and hastily formed opinion: it is expressed as follows in tho first English edition of “Feeding and Care of Baby,” in which I wrote as follows, in 1913: “It is now generally agreed that a large proportion of oases of so-called ‘bom idiocy or ‘congenital imbecility’ are really duo to injuries inflicted during delivery, or to illness arising after birth, and I can only repeat now, with added 'conviction, what I wrote eight years ago [now 19 years ligo]: “ ‘lf woman in general were rendered more fit for maternity, if instrumental deliveries wore obviated as far as possible, and if infants were nourished by their mothers, the main supplies of population for our asylums, hospitals, benevolent institutions, traols, and slums would be out off at the sources; further, a great improvement would take place in the physical, mental, and moral condition of the whole community.’ ” —I am, etc., F. Tkobt Kino.