Obstetrical Analgesic and Anesthetic Methods in a General Hospital a Comparative Analysis of One Thousand Nine Hundred and Seventy-Three Cases

Abstract

The employment of various narcotic and hypnotic agents and numerous technical procedures for the production of obstetrical analgesia and anesthesia has reached the highest point in history. Although it is now over one hundred years since Sir James Simpson introduced ether and chloroform into obstetrics, it has been only since 1900 with the advent of scopolamine, that such agents have been administered for the entirety of labor rather than for the termination of the second stage only. | The increasing use of these agents has closely paralled the trend towards hospitalization for labor and delivery. In 1945, 79 per cent of all live births in the United States occurred in hospitals. In cities with a population of one hundred thousand or more, this figure rose to 94 per cent. | The advances made have reduced maternal mortality and morbidity to unprecedented low figures. A tremendous field, however, still lies ahead in Improving the ultimate fetal salvage. The combined stillbirth and neonatal mortality in this country still varies between 4 and 6 per cent.