Modern views on the management of placenta praevia.

Abstract

The treatment of placenta praevia up to recent years has been seriously influenced by the belief that once the complication manifests itself by haemorrhage immediate treatment should be undertaken. This approach to the subject has resulted in a maternal mortality of 5.7 per cent. and a foetal mortality of 50-60 per cent. (Browne and Comyns Berkeley). In a personal series of 275 cases supervised over a period of I3 years 56 babies were stillborn or died. Of these, 30 babies were lost in the first four years while the writer was endeavouring to alter the traditional line of treatment.