Recognition is at once given to the responsibility to support the highest standard of maternity care. Beyond the strictly medical issues, however, is a wide range of social problems associated with human reproduction toward the solution of which the obstetrician has unique opportunities. These include measures directed toward the optimum timing and number of births, efforts for the adoption of appropriate codes of sexual behavior, and the prevention or early diagnosis of a number of special diseases and functional disorders. Undertakings in these fields are the responsibility of the individual obstetrician, and collectively of his societies, including the International Federation of Gynaecology and Obstetrics.