| Show Daily Health Service Most Maternity Deaths Believed Preventable By Dy DR MORRIS FISHBEIN Editor Journal of ot the American l Med ical Association s and Mid of ot the Health Magazine The death rates rales of mothers In the United States durin during childbirth have aroused great reat interest The subject Is being constantly agitated before congress con con- gross gress ress because of or legislation planned to provide Increased appropriations for education and preventive medicine applied to this cause of death Just as I long as IS any preventable death occur the mortality rates In may lY be considered e es There are however some actors which are arc hardly controllable In a recent survey of this subject Dr Havet Emerson professor of or pub pub- lie lic health administration in Columbia university points out some of the factors factors fac fac- tors which are commonly disregarded disregard ed cd but which nevertheless are of the greatest importance In ing lag maternal death rates and In clas clas- them as preventable and those not preventable ble For instance many calculators fail Cail to note the instances of multiple births such as twins and triplets Obviously Ob the number of ot children born bornis is greater reater than the total number of periods of or childbirth There are various ways of calculating calculating in ing the death rates of ot f infants infant In some European countries the birth is not reported as a live birth unless the child lives until it is baptized This may not be for several days Obviously Obviously Ob Ob- such calculation is not to be compared with one in which every child dying at birth is called a death or every child dying within the first weeks is called a dead birth Expert statisticians have found that the race of the mother her occupation occupation tion her economic status the age at which her first child is born the perIod period pe pe- pe- pe nod elapsing between two births and similar factors arc of ot the greatest importance im im- im Dr Haven Emerson shows that the death rates of oC mothers in cities for Cor both white and colored are arc 60 GO to 75 per cent higher from puerperal sepsis and Ind about 35 per cent higher from all causes than are death rates of ot mothers mothers moth moth- ers in the country I If the age of the mother at the first childbirth is over 25 years ears and If she has on the average less than three children she he will run a greater danger of ot death in childbirth than when the first and other childbirths occurred at an earlier period in her life The tendency in modern time tune is for women to wait walt longer lonser for marriage and for the birth of a first child than previously Dr Emerson says that in SOrTIe sonic of ot our modern st states teS' teS within the past five years third one of or all deaths of mothers in childbirth have occurred among rather elderly women women women wo wo- wo- wo men who died with their first child The most important point m made in his analysis is the Hon demonstration that it is impossible to comp compare lre the rates for the United States with those of other countries because of the difference difference dif dlf dif dif- ference in methods of recording fig fiC ures Dr Emerson is convinced that two two- thirds of the deaths in childbirth are arc prevents jle Toward such prevention every possible effort should be ap ap- ap plied |
