Abstract
We thank Dr Dennis for her letter highlighting the importance of anaesthetists in the multidisciplinary team caring for pregnant women with medical problems; a sentiment with which we (and we are sure most of our readers) all agree. Furthermore, we would stress the importance of obstetric anaesthetists in particular, rather than anaesthetists in general, as they have a unique knowledge and expertise of normal and abnormal physiology and pharmacology in pregnant and puerperal women.
We are confident that you will find many references to the role of anaesthetists in the care of pregnant women with medical problems in future review articles and original papers published in Obstetric Medicine. However, we make no apologies for failing to mention anaesthetists in our first editorial. The field of obstetric anaesthesia has had its own journal, The International Journal of Obstetric Anaesthesia for over 15 years. Obstetric Medicine is the first and only medical journal whose remit is limited to medical problems in pregnancy. There are fewer (by several orders of magnitude) obstetric physicians in the world than obstetric anaesthetists and their role is perhaps not so well-recognized. Allow us a little space to indulge the important milestone of a dedicated journal for our small specialty!