CHILDBIRTH IDEAL

Evening Star, Issue 19799, 24 February 1928, Page 11

CHILDBIRTH IDEAL

ADDRESS BY GREAT LONDON SURGEON £Pi>.ts Unites Press Association ] HAMILTON, February 23. T!io necessity for the dissemination of wider knowledge among doctors, nurses, and the lay public relative to childbirth was emphasised before the British Medical Association’s Conference to-day. Mr Victor Bouncy, the eminent London surgeon, in an address on puerperal sepsis, said that the subject had been so much before the public in the past few years that it had been studied with great care and detail by the medical profession. There were paths of infection in any surgical operation. In the first place, there were extreme causes, duo to infection from without by the lack of asepsis on the part of the surgeon in the proper preparation of the theatre or in his failure to render the surface of the patient free from bacterial contamination. In the second place, there was intrinsic infection, or infection from within the tissues of the patient. The difficulty of rendering the patient unlikely to become infected from without varied according to the part of the patient to bo operated upon. With few exceptions this could now be accomplished under modern surgical procedure. The question of dealing with intrinsic infection was much more diflicult, and was far from being completely solved. A vast amount of work had been done to try to solve the problem by bacteriological research; but so tar the variety of organisms concerned in the production of puerperal sepsis had not afforded the profession very much help beyond the fact that streptococcus of one sort or another was the organism most likely to cause disastrous results. The solution of this great question of septicaemia following childbirth was a problem that could only he tackled when one and all endeavored to make their obstetrical operations as near the ideal of surgical practice as possible. This ideal was impossible to realise to the full, but the more the medical profession, the nursing profession, and last, but not least, the lay public realised their responsibility in making sure that all mothers approached their confinement in the best possible state of health the better. Dr Riley (professor of obstetrics at the Otago Medical School) pointed out that the Health Department could help by providing better teaching facilities for students at tbo Otago University. Dr North (professor of gynaecology) urged upon the meeting the necessity of making the bringing of children into the world “ a palace beautiful, instead of a house grim with suspicion and fear.” It was the achievement of such a result that would give to mothers in New Zealand a new confidence. Owing to the presence of Mr Bouncy in New Zealand to stimulate interest in this subject they could now hope that the teaching of obstetrics would bo made thorough and practical. The speaker pointed out how in the past twenty years £16,000 had been poured into the University coffers to aid in the teaching of medicine and surgery, whereas not a penny had been received for obstetrical training. Dr Tracey Ingli.s (Auckland) stressed tbo point that a patient who had been left for a considerable length of time without assistance was much more likely to develop some slight puerperal sepsis than those who received welljudged assistance from their medical practitioner. He urged doctors to make certain that patients approaching childbirth had all danger of dental infection removed. The old bogey existing in the minds of dentists and the lay public that, teeth must not be touched during pregnancy must be “ scotched ” once and for all.

Mr Bouncy. in reply, stilted Hint the problem really resolved itself into a matter of the education of the people as fo their own responsibility in this great matter, hut the medical practitioners of New Zealand, he was sure, would do their best to help them.