Quoting the words of a famous scientist, Maria Rabiej started her lecture during the press conference held on 30 September 2010 in Warsaw. The meeting's objective was to sum up the third International Conference "The optimal child birth - the challenges of modern obstetrics".
The organizer and originator of the Symposium was Dr. Preeti Agrawal, who also graced us with her presence. She presented the kangaroo care technique, i.e. the method of optimal nursing of a prematurely-born infant. Professor Bogdan Chazan, the former national consulting physician in obstetrics, participated in the meeting as well. He discussed the operating conditions of the Polish health service in the sector providing care for mothers and their new-born babies. Maria Rabiej from the Medical Academy in Warsaw talked about the influence of the course of pregnancy and delivery on the quality of the child's further life, as well as the life of the family and the entire community.
Polish obstetrics has been going through a process of profound changes recently. On the one hand, technological progress has contributed to the mother's and child's life saving, on the other hand, however, it has led to the physicians' and midwifes' routinism, irrespective of the individual needs of the delivering mother and the infant. Modern obstetrics has been looking for fast solutions. Most of us take shortcuts, without ever realizing their long-term consequences. That is why there is an urgent need to rethink and understand the role of physicians and midwives, Dr. Preeti Agrawal concluded.
All experts agreed with the statement that in order to cure the health service system and to improve obstetricians' and midwives' activities, first a compromise has to be reached in various fields of science, such as physiology, prenatal psychology, surgery and anthropology. Only a synergic combination of knowledge from many fields can bring about an improvement in the medical care system. The participants of the conference discussed also the methods of making effective use of the current scientific achievements concerning the care of the parturient woman and her new-born baby. In some speeches there was even a postulate to develop new safer and friendlier standards of obstetrical and neonatological care.
Let us hope that the conclusions from the Warsaw conference will be applied in practice and will contribute to the improvement of patient care.