Mine is rather an exceptional case. Through being left without a mother
when a baby--father was a very large farmer and girls were expected to
do men’s work--I, at the age of sixteen, lifted weights that deformed
the pelvis bones, therefore making confinement a very difficult case.
I have five fine healthy girls, but the boys have all had to have the
skull-bones taken away to get them past the pelvis. Always a case for
two or three doctors, so you will know I have suffered something. I
wish more could be done to train young girls to be more careful. Over
my first baby I was eleven months before I could walk again. A woman
ought, in my opinion, to be treated more or less as an invalid during
pregnancy. I suffered most with sickness and swollen legs, terrible
bad carryings. You cannot follow up with work as you ought to do.
I suffered with a terrible bearing-down pain all through carrying.
I often wonder how some poor women do that have such very fast
confinements every twelve months and no care at all bestowed on them.
_Wages 20s. to 22s. 6d.; five children and five still-births._