Having these standards reduced maternal deaths substantially. In the mid-1930s, delivering a child had been the single most dangerous event in a woman’s life: one in 150 pregnancies ended in the death of the mother. By the 1950s, owing in part to the tighter standards and in part to the discovery of penicillin and other antibiotics, the risk of death for a mother had fallen more than 90 percent,
probem of childbirth
