[Home childbirth and clinical delivery in the 3d Reich. On a memorial to the German Society of Gynecology 1939].
There have always been controversies on the pros and cons of home delivery and childbirth in a hospital. During the Nazi regime, the official "health command" policy monitored by the Nazi party promoted home delivery under midwife supervision, both by pertinacious propaganda and partly also by decrees and ordinances. The official line of argument against clinical obstetrics consisted of a queer and highly questionable mélange of ideology and distored facts brought forward by the so-called "Reichsgesundheitsführer" Dr. Leonardo Conti and his mother, Mrs Nanna Conti as head of the Party-sponsored Midwives Association. The "Midwives Law" was promulgated on 21 December 1938 prescribing compulsory consultation of a midwife for every delivery. By the end of 1939 gynaecologists eventually rallied in protest against legislative measures to restrict clinical obstetrics, by means of a memorandum penned by the German Association for Gynaecology. This memorandum was scheduled for circulation among all the members of the association. The pressure exercised by this memorandum resulted in tough negotiations amounting to a tug-of-war between representatives of the German Association for Gynaecology and Dr. Conti. This led eventually not only to an abandonment of the attacks against clinical obstetrics but also to an official and unreserved recognition of its achievements. In addition, the "Reichsgesundheitsführer" issued "Directives for regulating obstetrics procedures" in 1940/41 in which it was laid down that it would be left to the decision of the expectant mother to choose where she would prefer to deliver her child.
D036861:Delivery, Obstetric; D005260:Female; D005858:Germany; D006176:Gynecology / Q000266:history*; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006700:Home Childbirth; D006801:Humans; D009774:Obstetrics / Q000266:history*; D011247:Pregnancy
Hausgeburt und Klinische Entbindung im Dritten Reich. Uber eine Denkschrift der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Gynäkologie aus dem Jahre 1939.