NE of our many perplexing prob\ J lems has been how to provide adequate and safe care for mothers, especially immediately following delivery. The hospital ruling had always required each mother, immediately postpartum, to be observed constantly by a nurse for one hour, with pulse and respirations taken and recorded every ten minutes, With around 30Q babies delivcred each month, this number of hours of nursing care was not available. Through the concerted efforts, thinking, and planning of the obstetric staff and the hospital director, the idea of the obstetric recovery room was conceived. Although there were some fears that "we were not set up for it," we achieved our goal in a remarkably short time. We looked around at the facilities available with the thought in mind that the recovery room must be close to the delivery room. Perhaps we were fortunate in having had four delivery rooms two on either side of a corridor. We decided to equip two of the ad-