PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Marjorie Tew
TI  - Obstetric hospitals and general-practitioner maternity units — the statistical record
DP  - 1977 Nov 01
TA  - The Journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners
PG  - 689--694
VI  - 27
IP  - 184
4099  - http://bjgp.org/content/27/184/689.short
4100  - http://bjgp.org/content/27/184/689.full
SO  - J R Coll Gen Pract1977 Nov 01; 27
AB  - The share of general-practitioner units in the provision of maternity services, though minor, has increased since 1956, but their facilities have consistently been used less intensively than those of consultant obstetric hospitals. Their fetal and neonatal mortality rates, however, have consistently been much lower than in obstetric hospitals, a disparity which the higher proportion of births in hospital, recorded as being at above average risk, is not nearly enough to explain. These facts should be important considerations in any review of maternity services occasioned by changes in the birthrate.