156. “A Law to Stay in Bed Ten Days.”
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.