ABSTRACT
The health of the pregnant woman had become subject to investigation during World War I, when it was realised that ante-natal factors had a serious bearing on the incidence of infant mortality. But as the maternal mortality rate rose between 1923 and 1936, a correspondingly greater amount of attention was devoted to the mother. A high maternal mortality rate appeared particularly reprehensible when the importance of the duties and responsibilities of motherhood were being stressed, and the government was acutely aware of this. It had been the government's own reports, issued during the 1920s, that had drawn attention to the problem and the lack of any improvement in the situation made it appear that no action was being taken to correct it. Public outcry on the issue came from all classes of women, for it appeared that as many middle-class as working-class women were dying. For example at the 1932 meeting of the unofficial Maternal Mortality Committee (whose members included women from all social classes), a Mrs A.L. Smith commented: ‘I am speaking of mothers of my own class, because according to Sir George Newman, the death rate is higher for instance in well-to-do neighbourhoods like Hampstead, than in the slums of London.’ 1
