MATERNAL MORTALITY
BIG IMPROVEMENT RECORDED IN SIX YEARS. In the year 1020, the maternal death rale in flic Dominion reached the high figure of 6.48 per 1,000 live births. Wide attention was drawn to the position by the Minister of Health culminating in an investigation and the taking of special measures by the Department of Health with a view to bringing about an improvement in this one section of New Zealand's vital statistics, which did not compare favourably with those of some other countries. This year the maternal mortality rate is 4.25 per 1000 living births Each of the last six years lias shown a distinct improvement over the abnormally high rate of 1920. The death rate for the past seven years was as follows: — 1920 0.48 1921 5.08 1922 5.14 1923 • 5.11 1924 5.0 1925 4.05 1920 4.25 The explanation of the high rate in 1920 appears to be that in that year the proportion of first births was abnormally high, namely one in every three, as compared with one in every four in 1919. It may be noted, however that in 1921, when the rate of maternal mortality was only 5.08 per 1000 births, the proportion of first births was again high, so that probably some other factor was partly responsible. The number of cases of puerperal septicaemia was particularly high in 1920. totalling 07 as compared with only 48 in 1921. New Zealand is now seventh in the list of the following 21 countries, the percentage of deaths from puerperal causes being given:— Denmark 1919-23 2.00 Netherlands 1919-23 2.58 Italy 1919-23 2.75 Uruguay 1919-23 2.88 Japan 1920-24 3.39 England and Wales 1920-24 3.95 Now Zealand 1922-20 4.83 Australia 1920-24 4.80 Irish Free Stale 1920-24 5.02 Germany 1919-23 0.04 Jamaeia 1920-24 5.17 Northern Ireland 1920-24 5.25 Spain 1918-22 5.34 Switzerland ‘ 1918-22 5.42 Canada 1921-24 5.53 Belgium 1919-23 5.08 Scotland 1920-24 6.27 United States 1019-23 7.08 Chile 1919-23 8.24 British Guinea 1922-24 13.33 Ceylon 1920-24 19.92
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/MH19270602.2.12
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3646, 2 June 1927, Page 2
Word count
Tapeke kupu
327MATERNAL MORTALITY Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3646, 2 June 1927, Page 2
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Manawatu Herald. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.