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In the first CEMD report, covering 1952–1954, obstetric injury was the second most common cause of death after hypertensive disease (Table 2.1). It did not, however, warrant its own chapter and Table 2.1 is drawn from the appendix to that report.

Table 2.1 Number of maternal deaths from obstetric injury, 1952–1954

Cause	Deaths (n)
Prolonged labour	63
Disproportion or malposition of the fetus	23
Other trauma	55
Other complications of childbirth	66
Total	207

Nowadays, we can hardly imagine a woman dying of prolonged labour and we can only guess at what the terms ‘other trauma’ and ‘other complications’ conceal (Table 2.1). In the 1950s, the caesarean section (CS) rate was less than 3% and maternity care was quite different from that of today. The 1955–1957 report included 33 women who died from a ruptured uterus, mostly due to intrauterine manipulations. In 1958–1960, there were 43 women who died from obstructed labour, of whom, according to the report for that triennium, 18 gave birth at home and 14 in a general practitioner maternity home. These reports are a useful corrective to the idea that the 1950s were a golden age of non‐medicalised childbirth.