Genealogy Chat

I've heard it said, but by someone whose information sounded faintly suspect, that many women died in or soon after childbirth because the practice of the day required that they stayed in bed, rather getting up and moving about, so that they developed blood clots which proved fatal.

My midwife believed that too and I have no reason to doubt her. She visited shortly me a day after I had my first child found I was in bed. She went mad. I had my daughter on Thursday morning and by Sunday I was out shopping for clothes thanks to this midwife! She then delivered my son a few years later and this time I got into trouble for walking too early (within 3 hours of the birth )to ring relatives! You do apparently need to keep moving to prevent blood clots and advice is definitely don't stay in bed. My local hospital don't even keep you in overnight if they can help it. I was discharged within 8 hours with my first and I personally was discharged within 4 yet had to wait around for another 5 hours while they found a doctor to discharge baby!

Phoenix It's certainly true that most women would have welcomed a few hours in bed at any time! But you are right, they do like you to get up the minute you've dropped these days. After my first baby was born they wanted me to get up and have a shower, but I said I was going to stay there even if the hospital was on fire, I was totally whacked, so they gave me a sponge bath instead. I suppose lying in bed for ages was the same sort of thing as being stuck in an aeroplane seat for ages. But probably only wealthy women would have been able to do this - a new mum would still have other children to sort out, housework to do, meals to fetch etc. nell

I wondered if it would be possible to have a heart attack through the sheer shock of child birth. I'm sorry to hear about your miscarriage. I wonder if they ever tried to intervene years ago, I will do some research and let you all know. x

I'm not a medical person but... I was told that the pain of child birth is so great, It can kill you. Our body during labour starts producing a chemical that actually stops us from dying through shock.. I had my babies 30/40 years ago and we were forced to stay in Hospital for 10 agonising days! Dads were not allowed in only in the evenings and you were allowed only 2 other visitors on a wednesday lunchtime. You were not allowed to pick your baby up, a nurse had to hand him/her to you in bed. During labour you were not allowed to lay in any other possition other than on your back. I was at the birth of some of my grandchildren. Wow! what a difference!....carpets/armchairs, being allowed to walk around, being allowed to have a bath! and best of all......an epidural if you get tired! I think these should be compulsary lol Love my kids... now they have grown and moved out but they can still be a pain in the ar** LOL Gerri x

The same authority said that ALL women, in the country at least, would remain confines, at least to the house, for 4 - 6 weeks. I find this very difficult to believe, as it would mean, amongst other things, that women rarely attended the baptisms of their infants.

In the Catholic church, women had to be 'churched' after having a baby before being accepted back into the Church. For example: from www.iol.ie/~pcassidy/ARC/churchng.html If the mother was well enough to attend christening she went to the church and took no part in Christening, but as soon as she entered the church she went to the side altar of the Blessed Virgin and knelt down at the altar rails until the Christening of her baby was finished . . . When the priest was ready, he went inside the rails and went to where the mother was and he prayed over her for almost five minutes, blessed her with holy water and made the sign of the cross with his thumb on her forehead. There was a blessed candle alight during the time the woman was being churched ... The people who had attended the Christening waited for the mother at the bottom of the church . . . Now if the mother could not go to be churched the day of the Christening, she was churched the first Sunday she went to mass after the birth of the baby . . . There was a custom around here at that time that a woman that was not churched did not enter any other house, only her own. No neighbour wanted her to visit them until she was churched as she was considered a very bad omen to see her enter anybody's house. She was supposed to bring bad luck to the house until she was blessed by the priest, some misfortune would befall one of the people in the house she went to, or something belonging to them would have some mishap.

Well, the not-lying-in-bed bit is certainly right. Risk of blood clots is very real if the circulation is not kept stimulated. Remaining confined to the house is also certainly correct - although 4 to 6 weeks may be a slight exaggeration. Women were not supposed to appear in public after a birth until they had been 'churched'. That is to say, blessed and 'cleansed' by the church. Until then they were considered to be 'unclean'. Most often, the woman was churched at the same time as the baby was baptised. Nowadays, this seems to us to be quite an insulting view of a new mother. However, if you think about it, maybe there was a grain of sense in it after all. Firstly, although the woman would doubtless be about her normal duties within the home, at least she would be spared having to walk long distances etc. Secondly, it was a way of putting pressure on the husband not to demand his 'marital rights' too soon after the birth. Perhaps there was method in the madness after all. Tina PS Bev - don't let the horror stories frighten you. Not everyone has horrific experiences in childbirth. Some of us pop them out like shelling peas - and the gas and air makes you feel ever so good! Do they still use gas and air or am I showing my age?

Ha, Monica, you beat me to it. It was not just the Catholic church - C of E was the same. 25 years ago when I had my first child my mother was quite shocked at my going out without being churched! Tina

I'm surprised that women had babies at all, must be that innate system to procreate! I've just read that women in Victorian times always tried to conceal the fact that they were pregnant as it would have meant that they would have had to address the fact that they'd sex. Wealthier women would just stay in doors! x

Do you think that men would often 'demand' their marital right? Was it THAT sinister? Ouch!

In answer to Book Lady's Q about miscarriage (last reply on page 1), I think the death cert would say something like ''septicaemia due to incomplete abortion'' Don't forget ''abortion'' is the medical term for miscarriage..... Merry

When I was 8 months pregnant with my first child, my elderly Victorian Aunt was scandalised that I was still going out shopping! My 2 x GGM, Mary Green, died aged 36 of 'unstoppable haemmorhage' (sic) at the birth of her eleventh child in 13 years. Another GGM died at the birth of her first child from 'rheumatic heart'. In 1949 my mother gave birth to my brother at home, her second child. She was in labour for three days and becoming very weak. The Midwife panicked and delivered my brother by forceps, damaging his eye, which resulted in him having 16 operations before he was 16. My mother had suffered from rickets as a child and this had obviously had an effect on the strength of her bones. My brother was so big (over 11 lb, probably undiagnosed pregnancy diabetes) that he shattered my mother's pelvis. Neither the Midwife nor the Doctor spotted this. My mother was in agony for weeks after the birth but was told to pull herself together. Eventually she collapsed and started convulsing, which finally had her admitted to hospital. She was in plaster from the neck down for nearly a year and although my brother was allowed to be with her, I was shipped off to relatives and did not see my mother again until I was four. I asked my mother why she didnt sue - she said she didnt know she could!!! All my labours have been different - if my third child had been my first, she would have been my last, if you see what I mean! But my first and my last labours were a doddle - I offered to get up and scrub the Ward floor after the birth of the last one! As for men demanding their marital rights - well, yes, they did. Thankfully, some Doctor came up with the 'rule' that you could not resume marital relations until 6 weeks after the birth. Absolute rubbish, but very handy for most woman! Olde Crone

I found this on another website: Marriage and childrearing where indivisible; indeed, in the mid-nineteenth century reproduction was considered a woman's only correct occupation. Birth control literature was illegal and the average working class wife was either pregnant or breast feeding from wedding day to menopause. She would typically have five living children from eight or more pregnancies, as so many children died before the age of five. Infant deaths were especially prevalent amongst the very poor. Far fewer children were born to the upper classes, indicating that some educated people knew how to avoid pregnancy.

And this: Outside Marriage Premarital pregnancy was rare among the upper classes, because girls were chaperoned and their activities controlled. In the middle classes it was fairly rare, and the girl was swiftly married to her seducer, or sent away to give birth secretly and the child adopted. Many working class women became pregnant outside of marriage; however, because of the social stigma, the fear of losing their paid work, and lack of money to raise the child, many concealed the pregnancy. If, as was common, a domestic servant became pregnant as a result of seduction by her employer, sometimes the family expelled the girl from the house, but if the seducer was working class the couple was often pressured into marrying. Throughout the nineteenth century many new-born babies were found abandoned, usually strangled or smothered. If the mother was traced she was charged with murder and tried by a male judge and all-male jury. In a large number of cases the woman had been persuaded or tricked into sexual activity. The Courts made no attempt to trace the father, causing occasional angry outbursts by women in courtrooms. Many local working class women kept their baby and applied to Hastings magistrate's court for an affiliation order to force the putative father to pay towards the child's upkeep. In the mid-century this was about 1s 6d or 2 shillings per week. Men often denied paternity, but it seems the woman was generally believed, particularly if she could bring witnesses to show she had consorted with the man at the time of conception. Deaths of illegitimate infants in Hastings were much higher than the national average. In 1851 William Eldridge of Tivoli Road house, aged 52, was a brewer and farmer employing some seven to nine persons. He described himself as married, but no wife appears on the Census. However, living at the same address was 39 year old Louisa Barnett, who named Eldridge as the father of her four children aged from 7 years to nine months. The Census enumerator listed her relationship to Eldridge as 'servant.'

Hi Just reading the bit about women being churched after childbirth. I'm sure that I read somewhere years ago that there used to be a really big taboo about having your period as well and that if you were on then you couldn't prepare food. Sounds very Old Testement doesn't it. Then again I have that sort of a family. I was too embarassed to tell my parents directly that I was pregnant because that would acknowledge that I'd been having sex and I'd been married for 4 years. How daft is that! They're like that though )~: I wrote to them in the end.

Yes, Leviticus has all the food taboos and stuff about not sleeping with unclean (menstruating) women. That's where the Jewish (and some other faiths) get there basis for not eating pork, having separate storage for dairy/meat products etc. nell

I'm sure a previous post is right in saying that, in general, working class women had more children than the upper classes......However, I have also read that for some upper class women, pregnancy was even more of an occupation hazzard - because of wetnurses. Upper class women had (generally) better diets than working class women and also, if they employed a wetnurse they didn't have the ''protection'' of breastfeeding that did at least HELP to stave off a subsequent pregnancy...... A friend's wealthy ancestor married at 16 and had produced 15 children by the time she hit 30 and 22 by the time she was 45. Rather her than me!! Merry

They even called it the 'curse' I believe

I thought the curse was the period. Perhaps I'm wrong