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Show Public Health Column "Our most outstanding cause of infant death is prematurity, and the second highest cause i9 from respiratory infection, notably bruncho-pneumonia," said Dr. Lela J. Beebe, Director of the Division of Maternal and Child Health of the Utah Board of 'Health of the Utah State Board of I j Health, in a discussion this morn-j morn-j ing before the Utah Conference oi Social Workers. Dr. Beebe discussed problems connected with maternity and infancy in the United States and Utah. She explained that the entire problem of the prevention j of maternal mortality and morbidity, morbi-dity, and of the safe delivery of healthy infants, is one of growing social and economic importance. She pointed out the decline in birth rates, both in the nation and in the State of Utah, empha- , sizing the fact that, while Utah's birth rate has not declined as rapidly as that of the nation, there ; is still evidence of beginning decline de-cline here, and we have a re-spons.bility re-spons.bility to offset that decrease de-crease by keeping alive and healthy heal-thy more babies and their mothers. "Utah," she said, "has assets upon which we can and should , rely to make our accomplish- i ments in reducing our rate of j sickness and death among j mothers and children outstand-: .ng. These assets are a homogeneous homogene-ous white population, overwhelmingly overwhelm-ingly American and of good intelligence; in-telligence; our people are a settled, settl-ed, home-loving group, interested in education and civic betterment; better-ment; we have an unusually high i percentage of high-school gradu-! ates; and relatively few families I . e on isolated farms. The old . .onecr trad tions of the State Ob.ered a way of neighbor-of neighbor-of community organization r ft, whch are highly c v.. to good health organi-do organi-do not have," she said, ...-e. d-Svress.ng problems oi -ae.al deference, slum impoverishment im-poverishment or excessive migra- j lion, we have a better distribution distribu-tion of physicians than the majority major-ity of rural states. We have the unusual picture of a high birthrate, birth-rate, with a low maternal mortality mor-tality and infant mortality rate, and a very low incidence of illegitimacy. "We do have," she said, "some difficulties to overcome. The larger and better-equipped hospitals hos-pitals and medical specialists are concentrated in one end of the State, making them relatively difficult of access to almost one-half one-half of the population. We have no available centers for postgraduate postgrad-uate medical training within the Qtate or nearby. There are in the State some isolated section which have and are experiencing considerable economic distress, tending to make more difficult adequate medical care and hos- pitalization. "These difficulties are being met to a remarkable degree, however," she explained, "as evidenced evi-denced by the fact that maternal deaths are accurring about the same proportion in urban areas as in rural districts. People living in vicinities near well-equipped hospitals do make use of them, however, as shown by 1938 records. re-cords. During that year, 84.8 per cent of all urban births were by physicians in hospitals. Fifteen and two-tenths per cent of babies born in the cities not in hospitals were delivered by physicians, and less than one per cent of city babies born at home were delivered de-livered by non-medical attendants. attend-ants. "Tn rural areas, on the other . hand, only 37.2 per cent were delivered in hospitals, but 607 per cent of the babies born in the :'!"J country were delivered by phy u ri sicians in the home; and only '"wi slightly more than 2 per cent of Utah rural-born babies were de- n""1 livered by non-medical attend- .m ants." DEN |
