The inadequacy of external pelvimetry

Abstract

I N THE present paper I wish to confine my remarks to external pelvimetry and to consider especially the four maneuvers that are employed as a routine procedure by most obstetricians. I refer to the determination of the length of the interspinous diameter, the inter&&al diameter, the intertrochanterio diameter and the external conjugate or Baudeloque’s diameter. That these procedures are wholly inadequate for determining the true diameters of the pelvic inlet becomes increasingly evident to me as our work in roentgen pelvimetry progresses. Furthermore the measurements obtained by external pelvimetry may be misleading. This is no new conception. Ever since the time of Baudeloque various observers have questioned the value of these procedures. Criticism has been directed especially toward the method of determining the length of the true conjugate by the subtraction of certain figures from the length of the external conjugate.