Judging from my own experience, a fair amount of knowledge at the
commencement of pregnancy would do a lot of good. One may have a good
mother who would be willing to give needed information, but to people
like myself your mother is the last person you would talk to about
yourself or your state. Although mother nursed me with my first child,
I never said one word to her about it coming, except the bare date I
expected. I felt I couldn’t, and outside people only tell you what
garments you need, and just the barest information. I have learned the
most useful things since my children have grown up. The youngest is
nine. The idea that you impress the child all through the time with
your own habits and ways, or that its health is to a great extent
hindered or helped by your own well-being, was quite unknown to me.
At the time I fell with my second child we were in very bad
circumstances, and feeding my first with a bottle, I stinted myself
all I could to give him plenty; and having moved from one house to
another two months before the second one was born, I overdid myself,
with the result that I was bad for a week before he was born; and
then, the birth being such a long time about, a clot of blood got down
into my ankle, and before I got far over the confinement I was laid up
with a bad leg, which the doctor said was due to the child being so
long coming into the world. I should say I had a midwife this time,
as I could not afford the doctor’s fee. Had the midwife called in the
doctor, as she should have done, I might have been saved a lot, for my
back has never been right since. Whenever I get very tired or not very
well, I always feel it in the place where he seemed fixed. So I feel
that if young mothers knew more of the need for care of themselves, and
what should be done for them at the time of childbirth, much suffering
could be saved.
_Wages 18s. to 32s.; three children, one miscarriage._