The "Old Scientist Academic Growth Data Collection Project" (hereinafter referred to as the "Collection Project") was officially launched in 2010, which is a scientific and technological history and humanities project approved by the State Council and jointly implemented by the China Association for Science and Technology and 11 ministries and commissions. Over the past 10 years, more than 500 old scientists have been collected, hundreds of units across the country have invested in the collection work, and the total number of physical originals 141301, digital data 338963, audio data 556063 minutes, video data 468985 minutes, has become the largest, richest content, the most extensive type of precious historical data collection project for scientists in China, as well as an important platform for engaging in the study of China's modern and contemporary science and technology history and scientific and technological figures, and the construction of scientific and cultural construction. It is an important carrier for carrying forward the spirit of scientists in the new era. This article is compiled based on the historical data of the "Collection Project" and published on platforms such as the "Chinese Scientists" public account for the benefit of readers.
On April 16, 2017, a 104-year-old man passed away unexpectedly.
She is Yan Renying, a famous chinese obstetrics and gynecology and women's health expert, a tenured professor of Beijing Medical University, and the honorary president of Peking University Hospital. After years of research, Yan Renying found that daily oral supplementation of 0.4 mg of folic acid in pregnant women can prevent neural tube development malformations in newborns. Under her impetus, folic acid supplementation for pregnant women has risen to the level of national behavior; and this initiative has effectively guarded the health of babies, making hundreds of millions of women happy mothers, and allowing countless families to have a healthy next generation.
Yan Renying
From an early age, he aspired to study medicine
Born on November 26, 1913 in Tianjin, Yan Renying's grandfather, Yan Xiu, was a famous educator in modern China, who founded Nankai University together with Zhang Boling. Her grandfather's emphasis on education and learning methods cultivated Yan Renying's independent and self-reliant character and tolerant character, laying a solid foundation for her future development.
However, when Yan Renying was in junior high school, his grandfather died of illness, and his third brother was forced to withdraw from school due to tuberculosis, and he was deeply tortured. Yan Renying, who witnessed all this, made it clear what he was going to fight for, that is, to become a doctor.
"At that time, there was such an ideal, to study medicine!"
In 1932, at the suggestion of his fifth brother Yan Renyin, Yan Renying was admitted to Tsinghua University. At that time, Tsinghua did not have a pre-medical department, so she had to enter the biology department first. In order to study medicine for her original intention, she took the compulsory course of the preparatory department of Peking Union Medical College, and since then Yan Renying has begun to study "carrying two school bags".
In 1935, Yan Renying lived up to the expectations of the public, and the previous three excellent results were successfully admitted to the Peking Union Medical College, which is known as the "Temple of Chinese Medicine".
According to the requirements of the college, students need to take turns to go to various subjects for internship, and Yan Renying met Professor Lin Qiaozhi for the first time in the obstetrics department. She found that Lin Qiaozhi often sat next to the mother, touched the mother's belly, listened to the fetal heartbeat, checked the uterine contractions, and carefully explained various explanations to the mother. With continuous observation and learning, Yan Renying slowly learned that a qualified obstetrician and gynecologist must not only be able to treat diseases, but also be able to solve the heart disease of pregnant women, so that they can feel the comfort of the soul.
Yan Renying (first from right) and his mentors Lin Qiaozhi (second from right), Song Hongzhao (third from right) and others took a group photo at the Jinci Temple
Under the influence of his mentor Lin Qiaozhi, Yan Renying chose to specialize in obstetrics and gynecology and stayed in Xiehe to become a resident doctor. She loves this profession, and in her mind obstetrics and gynecology is "a sweet career of one person entering the hospital and two people discharging from the hospital".
Yan Renying (right) and Lin Qiaozhi (Source: Guangming Daily)
The husband and wife fought together
While Xiehe was busy working, Yan Renying also harvested precious love.
The lover Wang Guangchao is a classmate of Yan Renying University, and an experience during the internship accidentally made the love between the two. In an emergency room, a child with diphtheria had trouble breathing and was so crunchy that he was suffocated. Wang Guangchao immediately cut the child's trachea with a scalpel and inserted the tube, so that the child was saved. Yan Renying, who witnessed the whole incident, became fond of him.
On July 14, 1942, Yan Renying and Wang Guangchao's wedding photo
In 1942, Yan Renying and Wang Guangchao held a simple wedding in Beijing. At that time, the Pacific War had broken out and the Union Hospital was forced to close, so Yan Renying went to her husband Wang Guangchao's clinic to help. Soon, she discovered that her husband's private clinic was unusual, which openly served a large number of patients, but privately it was a secret contact point for underground CCP members, and at the same time, she continued to secretly deliver medicines to the anti-Japanese forces behind enemy lines. After knowing this, Yan Renying bravely cooperated with her husband's "mysterious" actions.
"This kind of covert operation lasted for two years, delivering medicine to the base areas, and we were never afraid."
In 1948, Mr. and Mrs. Yan Renying went to Columbia University School of Medicine in the United States for further study, and they especially cherished this hard-won learning opportunity. In 1949, the news of the founding of New China reached the other side of the ocean. After hearing the news, Yan Renying and his wife returned to their hearts like arrows, and they looked forward to returning to the embrace of the motherland immediately and using what they had learned to serve the country.
After breaking through the persuasion and obstruction of the United States, Yan Renying and his wife boarded the "President Cleveland" ship in September of that year.
Carry the banner of maternal and child health care
In the 1960s, Chairman Mao Zedong issued a directive to "focus medical and health work on the countryside." In 1964, Yan Renying went to Miyun County, a suburb of Beijing, to open a "half-rural, half-doctor" study class. This experience gave her a profound understanding of the lack of medical care and medicine in rural areas and the difficulty of farmers to see a doctor.
At that time, in rural areas, the incidence of maternal dystocia was particularly high, and when patients were admitted to the obstetric departments of hospitals, they were either endangered or stillborn, in which case the role that doctors could play was actually very small. Faced with this situation, Yan Renying began to reflect on the limitations of clinical medicine. She pointed out that medical treatment can only treat one person, while prevention can benefit a large group.
In 1979, Yan Renying became the president of Peking University Hospital. In the same year, she accompanied a delegation of Chinese women on a visit to the United States, during which she was exposed to the newly emerging perinatal medicine abroad. Inspired by Yan Renying's determination to introduce "perinatal health care" to China, she shifted her scientific research direction from clinical to the field of preventive health care, which was considered the most promising at the time.
Yan Later recalled that the decision was still very gratifying, because "clinical medicine can only treat one person for a limited time, while preventive care can benefit a group of people".
In 1979, Yan Renying (third from left in the second row) visited the United States as a member of a Chinese women's delegation
After returning to China, Yan Renying created the "Eugenic Health Care Group" of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology of Peking University Hospital and began the research and promotion of perinatal medicine. In the mainland, maternal obstetric examinations begin only after 7 months of pregnancy, and Yan Renying believes that obstetric examinations should be advanced to the early stages of pregnancy and should be checked regularly to ensure the health of pregnant women and babies. She also organized the establishment of early pregnancy clinics and pregnant women's schools, providing services for nearly a thousand pregnant women every day, and providing comprehensive guidance on the physiological and psychological problems of pregnant women.
To do eugenic health care, first of all, a lot of research is required. Yan Renying took the rural area of Shunyi on the outskirts of Beijing as a pilot and began to monitor and observe the maternal and perinatal deaths from 1981 to 1982. In addition, the "high-risk management" measures of perinatal health care are actively promoted in remote areas, and the best efforts are made to help women give birth scientifically.
In March 1988, the "Rural Pilot Study on the High-Risk Management of Perinatal Health Care of the Collaborative Research Group of Perinatal Health Care in Shunyi County, Beijing Shunyi County" of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology of the First Hospital of Beijing Medical University won the third prize of the Beijing Science and Technology Progress Award
In more than 3 years, Yan Renying led the team to investigate and study more than 2,000 infants, and successfully promoted the "high-risk management" measures of perinatal health care, reducing the perinatal mortality rate from 27 ‰ to 17.6 ‰. Her pilot research on "High-Risk Management of Perinatal Health Care" has also been well received by the World Health Organization, who has funded three consecutive sessions of the National High-Risk Management Workshop on Perinatal Health Care in the mainland, so that the technology will soon be extended to the whole country.
Yan Renying also led the team to carry out the investigation of "social factors of maternal death" and the study of postpartum depression in rural areas, expanding perinatal health care from medicine to sociology and psychology; she established the Chinese Perinatal Medicine Association, founded the "Chinese Journal of Perinatal Medicine", and promoted the "three-level management network" of perinatal health care in rural areas across the country. With the transformation of medical models, perinatal health care and reproductive health care have successfully expanded to all ages and multidisciplinary fields.
Creator of 0.4 mg folic acid
Yan Renying has found in previous investigations that neural tube malformations are the leading cause of neonatal death, which is related to the lack of folic acid in pregnant women during pregnancy.
In the 1990s, Yan Renying was responsible for the implementation of the "Sino-US Cooperation Project for the Prevention of Neural Tube Malformations", through the study and analysis of 250,000 samples, the results were that giving pregnant women 0.4 mg of folic acid per day could effectively reduce the incidence of neural tube malformations by 85%.
Manuscript of Yan Renying's Women's Health
In 1996, the Chinese Ministry of Health adopted and promoted Yan Renying's research results, and 0.4 mg became the only standard designated by the World Health Organization for the prevention of folic acid for birth defects, which was subsequently incorporated into public health policies by more than 50 countries.
From the concord high-quality students who aspire to practice medicine, to the first women's health experts who carried the banner of China's perinatal health care and won the first "Chinese Mouth Award" and the "Camphor Tree Award" of maternal and child health care of the China Welfare Association, Yan Renying's important contributions to improving the level of women's health care and perinatal medicine in the country and achieving the happiness of countless families are worth remembering forever.
Yan Renying
（1913.11-2017.4）
Specialist in women's health
Text: Collection Engineering Project Office/Innovation Strategy Research Institute of China Association for Science and Technology
bibliography:
[1] "The Mother of Perinatal Health Care in China - Yan Renying Biography", an old scientist academic growth data collection project
Luo Ronghai. Yan Renying: Nirvana from clinical to health care (Photos)[N].Guangming Daily, 2014.2.7.
Li Juanjuan,Chen Jie. Yan Renying: Perinatal health care is a lifelong "sweet cause"[N].China Women's Daily, 2010-10-12(B04).
Dai Hong. Yan Renying, the Mother of China's Perinatal Health Care: A Hundred Years of Love, a Hundred Years of Education, a Hundred Years of Dedication[OL].People's Daily News, 2013.12.21.
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[6] The pictures in this article are from the Old Scientists Academic Growth Data Collection Project, The Museum of Chinese Scientists (online version) (except for remarks)