Maternal Mortality in Scotland, 1911–1945

Constructing women's citizenship in the interwar period: the edinburgh women citizens’ association

“…Maternal mortality rates were higher in Scotland in the 1920s than in the preceding decade (with the exception of 1918) and higher than in England and Wales, where rates also rose. [49] Government investigations in 1924 and 1928 show that medical ignorance and mismanagement allied to poor housing conditions and poverty led to maternal death and suffering. [50] The EWCA Maternity subcommittee investigated how far the local authority was employing its powers to improve maternal and child welfare and in 1928 that inquiry was extended to all of Scotland through the SCWCA.…”

Puerperal fever, the streptococcus, and the sulphonamides, 1911-1945.

“…In Scotland maternal mortality actually increased between 1900 and 1930. 3 In the United States, too, maternal mortality remained more or less constant at one of the highest recorded levels in the world, although a large and rapidly growing proportion of deliveries after 1920 took place in hospital under the care of specialist obstetricians (table I).4-7 Even in Denmark, Holland, and Scandinavia, where low maternal mortality was a constant reproach to the British and Americans, rates tended to stay level rather than to fall.5 8 Some of these aspects of the history of maternal mortality were discussed in two previous papers.9'0 This paper is concerned specifically with puerperal fever: why the death rate from puerperal fever remained so high until the mid-1930s and what led to the subsequent steep and sustained fall. The chronological boundaries are 1911, when the International List of Causes of Death (the ICD classification) was adopted by Britain, and 1945, when the profound fall in maternal mortality was firmly established and the mortality had fallen to only one third of the rate in 1934.…”

“…Similar trends occurred in Scotland. 3 This sudden, steep, and sustained fall in deaths from puerperal fever after the long period of high mortality is one of the most remarkable events in the history of obstetric care. Puerperal fever was not only the cause of the appallingly high death rates in nineteenth century lying in hospitals, it was until recently the single most common cause of maternal deaths, accounting on average for about 40% of total maternal mortality.…”