I think there is a good deal of room for improving a mother’s condition
during pregnancy and after childbirth. I myself have had nothing to
complain of, only ignorance in things which made me suffer more than
I had any need to while I was carrying my children, being young and
away from all my friends; and my mother, being one of the “old school,”
thought it wrong to talk to her girls of such things, and it always
made us feel shy of asking her anything. But my youngest is now in his
twelfth year. But I must say I have got a good husband, and we made
that condition years ago, that as the boy grew up he would enlighten
him, and I was to do the same by our girl, who is now fourteen years
old. And one thing I think should be imposed on mothers is to have a
doctor at confinements, and not to trust to midwives. I have seen a
lot of neglect here with different people I have been with at those
times. Certainly the midwife washes the mother after the birth of the
child, but not again is the mother washed until she can do it herself.
I think, myself, if there could be a law to make every mother have a
doctor, and to stay in bed for at least ten days, and to be treated as
an invalid for another fourteen days, it would save a lot of suffering.
The women would get stronger, and not so liable to have children so
quickly. A case in point only two doors away from me; the mother was
confined on the 21st; on the 26th she was getting about her work as
usual. Would a doctor have allowed that? The person is only about
twenty-three years of age, and her last baby is only thirteen months
old. Another case I was called in to some years ago. I did not know the
person, only by sight. Her husband came and called me in the middle of
the night. When I got there the child was born. No preparation had been
made for either mother or child. From what I gathered, both parents had
gone to bed drunk overnight. Isn’t it awful, a woman getting in that
state, knowing at any time she might give birth to an innocent little
baby? It was not poverty that had brought them to that state, as the
man’s earnings were £2 a week, but all the man and woman had thought of
was drink.
_Wages 36s. to £1; two children._