In 1960, one-third of all births in England and Wales took place in women's homes. Michael Bull, looking back in 1980 over his professional life, quoted the words of the partner he had joined when he first became a GP: 'When you look after a woman in pregnancy and deliver her, you will then have two patients for life'. For doctors working in the more competitive world before the days of the NHS, obstetrics was a fundamental part of medical care, partly because it was a way of winning the loyalty, and the custom, of young families.
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