Annual report : 1929 / Society of the Lying-in Hospital of the City of New York.
- Society for the Lying-In Hospital
- Date:
- 1929
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Annual report : 1929 / Society of the Lying-in Hospital of the City of New York. Source: Wellcome Collection.
13/82 page 9
![Medical Report HE report of the medical and educational activities of the Society of the Lying-In Hospital of the City of New York, from January 1, 1929, to December 31,1929, inclusive, is herewith submitted. The number of cases treated is somewhat smaller than during 1928. This is notably true of the out-door department. The diminishing demand for such services as the hospital offers to patients seeking confinement and obstetrical care in their homes has been in progress for the past fifteen years and will probably continue. We need not seek far to find the reason for this change. Immigration has practically ceased. The population which we served has largely moved to other parts of the city and families are smaller. Thousands of tenements in our district have been converted into shops and places of business, while bridge ap¬ proaches and street widening have displaced many others. More maternity hospitals and departments have come into existence. The people who now occupy the district are different racially, not so poor, and more of them are able to pay for the services of private physicians. The out-door maternity depart¬ ments in this and other cities are passing through a similar experience. The quality of service which the Lying-In provides has no way deteriorated. Cooperation and friendly team-work are outstanding features throughout the entire personnel of the hospital, with unyielding endeavor to do better work and secure better results. More of our patients recover rapidly without fever or other complications. Eclampsia, the convulsive form of toxemia, has almost disappeared in patients whose pregnancies have been supervised by the hospital. Seven years have passed since we began to develop and employ obstetric analgesia. This method had its origin in the Lying-In Hospital. We can assert that it is an agent which is safe and of great value, and that it does decidedly alleviate the pain incident to child-birth. It is not yet conceivable that the delivery of a child can be an entirely painless and, at the same time a safe [9]](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b31710943_0013.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
