OBSTETRICS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21086, 12 July 1938, Page 10

OBSTETRICS

Necessity for Research

“ Duty Owed to Mothers ”

Advocacy for the establishment of ai obstetrical research committee in Nev Zealand, to co-ordinate its work witl that of the Medical Research Committee, is made in the report of the Committee of Inquiry into Maternity Services, which has just been published. The investigation made by th< committee had shown the need foi

such an organisation to be very evident, and that the provision of such a service was a duty owed to the women of New Zealand and to doctors. “No maternity service for a country can be regarded as complete that does not provide for research into the special problems affecting the country for which it is designed,” said the report. ‘‘At the present time, no such organisation exists, and the committee advocates its inauguration. “New Zealand women, for some reason which is not known, suffer from eclampsia to a greater extent than those of England. Holland, and some other countries for which the statistical returns are comparable. One of the first duties of a research service should be to make systematic inquiry into the reason for this position in order to attempt to solve that problem which particularly affects New Zealand, Australia and Canada. “There is a large mass of information already possessed by the Health Department, the Obstetrical Society and the Otago Medical School tha* would be of immense use in this research, and possibly might succeed in revealing the causes and replacing assumption and theories with definite knowledge.

Relief o2 Pain “Another problem that has lately exercised the minds of those interested in obstetrics is the relief of pain. As has been indicated in another portion of the report, new drugs and new methods of using old ones for .he relief of pain during labour nave in recent years come into use, and others no doubt will be introduced from time to time.

“The necessity for research into this particular subject was made very evident to the committee by the veiy varied opinion as to the value and safety of different methods adopted by different practitioners, but in only one instance was any evidence based on a systematic record placed before the committee, and on no point was there more contradictory evidence given than with regard to the value and safety of the many methods now in use.

“The committee feels that the establishment of an obstetrical research committee under a competent officer who would collect and collate information derived from the many practitioners and workers interested in obstetrics in New Zealand and elsewhere is a duty that is owed to the women of New Zealand, to the practising obstetricians, and even to other parts of the world. The work of this committee would, of course, be co-ordinated with that of the Medical Research Committee.

“The committee is of opinion that if a competent research officer were appointed at a reasonable salary, there are a large number of medical men interested in obstetrics who would willingly co-operate, and that such an officer would be able to gain and dis-tribute-valuable information and make it available for the benefit of New Zealand’s future mothers and ir'ants.”