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occur and may even lead to a still-birth. Unfortunately, this happened
in one case. In nine other cases the confinements passed off well and
live babies were born as version (or, in other words, "turning") had
been performed on seven mothers; two at our Clinics, three at the
Consulting Ante-Natal Clinic at the Royal Free Hospital, at my
request, and two at New End Hospital. In two cases, the breech
presentation turned naturally into a vertex in the last few weeks of
pregnancy, as it sometimes is apt to do. We can get no further report
on the eleventh case.
There were 3 cases of transverse presentation. In such a condition,
the child is lying right across the mother's abdomen and great
difficulty is apt to arise during labour. In one case I converted the
malpresentation into a normal vertex presentation at the Clinic, whilst
I sent another to New End Hospital for the same purpose, as she was
going to be confined there. In the third case the malpresentation
rectified itself naturally as it occasionally does. All three confinements
were normal and mothers and babies did well.
The case of disproportion between the fcetal head and a pelvis
that showed slight general contraction, did extremely well, I am glad
to say, as it is such a type of case that is apt to lead to a maternal
death. The disproportion became manifest about a month before the
confinement was due, and with the consent of the midwife who had
been booked to attend her I sent the patient to the Consulting AnteNatal
Clinic. Professor Mcllroy arranged to admit her to the Royal
Free Hospital for her confinement and, as drug induction of premature
labour had failed, she decided to let her go to full time and do
Caesarian section if necessary, after labour had commenced. Fortunately,
however, the child was not a big one and was finally able to be
born naturally, as occasionally happens in such cases where great
difficulty has been anticipated.
There were 8 cases in which a minor degree of contracted pelvis
was found to be present and these were watched as carefully as
possible so as to detect any possible disproportion between the fcetal
head and pelvis that might subsequently arise. Reports are to hand
of the confinements of 6 of these patients. In 5 of them, the babies
were small and weighed less than 7 lbs. at birth (indeed 3 were
premature) so that no disproportion was manifested and labours were