ÚPMD / History of the Institute

The Institute for the Care of Mother and Child operates in monumental premises under Vyšehrad ramparts at the Vltava riverbank. The Institute was founded before World War I as a realization of the idea of prof. MUDr. R. Jedlička based on the Institute of May Brothers in USA. The building was designed by arch. prof. R. Kříženecký and was opened after four years of construction in 1914, shortly before the beginning of the World War I. This expensive building was realized particularly thanks to the support of doctors that made an interest circle of “Pražské sanatorium” [Prague Sanatorium]. Part of the sanatorium was enabled to use by the Red Cross during the World War I and became a military hospital.

1923 - T. G. Masaryk and R. Jedlička with his delegation in Sanatorium in Podolí

After the war, there were the 2nd Surgery and 2nd Gynecology Clinics in the premises of Sanatorium as well as X-Ray Diagnosis Department and Physical Therapy and Orthopedic Departments. Obstetric Department was opened in 1925. Partners and active cooperators were the following famous Czech gynecologists and obstetricians: Josef Jerie, Gustav Müller, Antonín Ostrčil, Václav Piťha, Václav Rubeška, Josef Saidl and pediatrician Matěj Pešina. Prague Sanatorium belonged those days among the top treatment centers in Europe. Germans confiscated the Institute during World War II and changed it into a military hospital for SS troops. The building was damaged by bombardment during the Prague May Rebellion in 1945. After that, there was a repatriation hospital for prisoners freed from Nazi concentration camps that suffered from tuberculosis.

By the Act issued on December 23, 1946, the Prague Sanatorium was expropriated and put under the administration of the Ministry of Education [Ministerstvo školství a osvěty]. After reconstruction of the building the same Ministry assigned it on January 23, 1948 to the 3rd Gynecologic and Obstetric Clinic of prof. J. Trapl, to the Nursery Clinic that was founded by prof. Josef Švejcar and prof. Jiří Blecha, and organization of which was finished by doc. MUDr. Kamil Kubát.

Foundation of the Institute for the Care of Mother and Child

The Institute for the Care of Mother and Child was founded by integration of the 3rd Gynecologic and Obstetric Clinics and the Nursery Clinic. It was done under the framework of establishing of medical research institutes in Czechoslovakia according to the Health Ministry regulation No. 77 Ú.1. from January 31, 1951 after agreement among the Headquarters of the Research of Technical Development [Ústředí výzkumu technického rozvoje], Ministry of Finance and the Czechoslovak government. This regulation was officially realized on March 1, 1951, when the Institute stopped being part of the State Teaching hospital [Státní fakultní nemocnice] and became a resort institute of the Ministry of Health. The idea of modern obstetricians and pediatricians lead by the first director of the Institute prof. MUDr. Jiří Trapl was fulfilled by the close cooperation of doctors of both clinics. It is the idea that a newborn baby should be taken care of by pediatrician immediately after the birth and not only after release from the hospital. The Institute became so the first institute in Czechoslovakia where an obstetrician cooperated with a pediatrician already in the labor ward.

First years of activities of the Institute

Their high working load of clinical work influenced first years of science activities of the employees of the Institute. The Institute had to ensure more than 3,000 deliveries a year due to a lack of beds in Prague maternity hospitals and due to a rising number of births during the time of a high birth rate. There were also a high number of gynecologic surgeries (more than 1,000 abdominal surgeries and 1,000 vaginal ones in 1951-1955). Department of Pathology and Department for Premature Babies were built in the Institute as the first such departments in Czechoslovakia. There were created methods of the care of asphyctic premature newborn babies and pediatricians took care of them immediately in the labor ward.

The science activity itself was concerned more with the clinical topics, which was justified by the demands of Ministry of Health. These demands were dictated by organizational and treatment problems in the care of women and newborn babies. These were maternal and perinatal mortality in the field of obstetrics and neonatology and inflammations of female genitals in the field of gynecology. These were the reasons why at the beginning of fifties the Institute became initiator and coordinator of a whole-state project “Traumatism of the Fetus”. Tens of employees of nine institutes in Czechoslovakia were cooperating on this project. These studies resulted in restriction of procedures harming both mother and fetus (termination of the birth by high forceps, by extraction of the fetus in a position of pelvis end), in establishing of new methods of resuscitation of asphyctic newborn baby and care of traumatized newborn. The Institute for the Care of Mother and Child has considerable participation on the results of these studies. These steps were gradually being established nationwide and contributed significantly to important fall of maternal and perinatal mortality in Czechoslovakia.

Creating and establishing of psycho-prophylactic preparation for birth giving completed by pregnancy exercise was the second important field on which employees of the Institute participated. This method was sometimes called “painless delivery”, which discredited it in the eyes of some obstetricians and part of lay public, but the method inspired studies concerned with analgesics at birth giving.

First years of activities of the Institute meant big changes in its staff. Some of the previous employees of clinics, both obstetricians and pediatricians whose work was mostly clinic, left. The Institute employed new young doctors interested in research work, but not all of them succeeded in this field. Specialized laboratories were founded to ensure deeper scientific research. The target of the research was slowly moving to the solution of basic tasks of pathofysiology of human population, which resulted into the development of theoretical-experimental part of the Institute.

More and more complicated conditions of scientific research caused the need of collective form of interdisciplinary cooperation among obstetricians and pediatricians as well as pathologists, ophthalmologists, neurologists, anesthetists and statisticians. That became a start of research groups in the Institute.