A preliminary report of a study of records of the Maternity Center Association of New York

Abstract

This study, therefore, demonstrates that, on the score of all essential indices, prenatal care, as conducted by the Maternity Center Association, produces effective results. The mortality of the mothers was reduced to about a third of the mortality occurring in the same area among women not receiving the intensive care offered by the Maternity Center. Stillbirths were 42 per cent lower than in the rest of the district and infant deaths in the first month of life were reduced 32 per cent as compared with the control group in the same area.But it is only too true that in spite of the gains, the irreducible minimum has not yet been reached in the mortality of mothers, in the diminution of stillbirths or in the deaths of babies under one month. There are still too many misfortunes to mothers and babies under the present régine. A combination of such a service as the Maternity Center Association gives with a well-controlled Medical Delivery Service preferably under a hospital's supervision, would more than likely eliminate many of these misfortunes.For the country as a whole, the results already achieved in the Maternity Center experiment reported in this study, have very definite implications. If the same type of service could be rendered universally and the same results obtained, 10,000 of the 16,500 women who die annually could be saved; many stillbirths could be prevented and some 30,000 babies that annually now die, under one month, would be living. The need of the future is obviously to put into operation the machinery which has been demonstrated over these years to be effective.