ABSTRACT
The author, Arthur Newsholme, discusses maternal mortality, from his experiences in public health. Sepsis in parturition ought now to be less prevalent than in more remote years when antisepsis and asepsis had not become the definite aim in all departments of medical practice. Listerism now is assumed to be the common practice alike of nurses and doctors, even though sometimes neglected. And yet the registered death-rate from puerperal sepsis has increased. The effect on total puerperal mortality of the greater risk in first pregnancies would be considerable; in the absence of more complete statistics it has been placed as high as 15-20 per cent and as low as 4 per cent. Certain factors have been tending to increase the figures of puerperal mortality, as registered, to a considerable though not measurable extent, namely altered certification, smaller families, and probably increased abortions, which have counteracted to that extent the tendency of puerperal mortality, as registered, to decline.
