Sir Dugald Baird

Dugald Baird
Portrait of Sir Dugald Baird
Born	1899 Greenock
Died	November 10, 1986(1986-11-10) (aged 86–87) Edinburgh
Nationality	Scottish
Alma mater	University of Glasgow
Spouse(s)	Lady Matilda Deans Baird
Children	four
Scientific career
Fields	Obstetrics and gynaecology
Institutions	University of Aberdeen

Sir Dugald Baird (16 November 1899–7 November 1986) was a Scottish medical doctor and a professor of obstetrics and gynaecology.

Baird was born in Greenock on 16 November 1899 to May and David Baird, head of the science department at Greenock Academy. He studied science and medicine at the University of Glasgow, graduating with an MB, ChB in 1922 and went on to receive an MD with honours. His early experiences attending births in the Glasgow slums and in the city's Royal Maternity Hospital shaped his interest in the social and economic influences on the health of women, their babies, and across generations. He was awarded Fellowship of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in 1935.

He moved to Aberdeen in 1936 as Regius Professor of Midwifery at the University of Aberdeen. During the next three decades, his main interests were in the areas of clinical practice, service provision and health policy in reproductive health, perinatal and maternal mortality, social obstetrics, sterilisation, induced abortion, and cervical screening. With his wife Lady Matilda Deans Baird, also a physician, Sir Dugald also established the first free family planning clinic in Aberdeen.

In 1951 he set up the Aberdeen Maternity and Neonatal Databank, which continues today to link all the obstetric and fertility-related events occurring to women from a defined population.

Sir Dugald formally retired in 1965. He died on 7 November 1986.

Baird and his wife had four children, two daughters and two sons. Their daughter Joyce Baird worked as a doctor specialising in diabetes at the Western General Hospital in Edinburgh. Their son Professor David Tennent Baird, was instrumental in gaining approval for the use of RU-486 in the UK as an emergency contraceptive or 'morning after pill'. Their son D. Euan Baird, retired as CEO and Chairman of the Board of Schlumberger Ltd. in 2003, after a decades-long career with them.