Is all of this elaborate organization and detailed care worth while?
A recent statement issued by the Maternity Centre Association replies convincingly that it is. It says that during 1920 among women in the Borough of Manhattan not under Maternity Centre supervision:
1. One mother died for every 205 babies born. (One out of 14 for the rest of the country.) 2. One out of every 26 babies born, died under one month of age. 3. One out of every 21 babies was born dead.
Whereas, among women in Manhattan who were supervised by the Association, during the same period:
1. One mother died for every 500 babies born. 2. One out of every 51 babies born, died under one month of age. 3. One out of every 42 babies was born dead.
The Association does not usurp nor supplant, but endeavors to give impulse to public and private agencies alike in affording the best possible supervision and care for expectant and parturient mothers and their babies.
Thus has the stupendous problem in New York been attacked with courage and with gratifying results. Much might be accomplished in smaller and less complex communities with proportionately less difficulty.
But all of the foregoing relates to city dwellers. What about the expectant mothers in isolated and rural communities?
I wish we did not have to say.
Prenatal care is practically unknown among them and there is scarcely any provision for obstetrical care, either. The nearest physician may live miles away and even though one were near, country women and their husbands do not always feel that the expense of employing a doctor, for mere childbirth, is justifiable.