[Attempt at cost and benefit analysis in the perinatal range (author's transl)]

Our cost and benefit analysis shows that "intensive obstetrics medicine" is obviously profitable from the material point of view and when using restrictive methods of estimation. The drop in perinatal mortality as well as in morbidity and the resulting gain in terms of national economy, however, cannot be considered from the viewpoint of efficiency of intensive obstetrics alone, this being merely one factor among many others. "Cost-Benefit" analyses are complex. Cost is not always clearly defined and cannot always be clearly balanced. Benefit, partly as the result of parameters which are difficult to assess, remains largely speculative.