74. “Heavy Wash-Days.”
I think a great deal of suffering might be spared especially over the first child, if the mother could only have had a little more knowledge how to go on, re the suffering. I have been prostrated for days with violent sickness and pain in the head. The case of miscarriage was a very bad one, resulting in having to attend the hospital nearly two years. The doctor says the miscarriage was caused by heavy wash-days, one of the things I think the expectant mother ought not to have to do; but it is one of the most important things in the home. I think if the mother could only be allowed to take care of herself the first three months of the time, many both deformed and deficient children might be avoided. I do not mean for a mother to lead an idle life for three months, because exercise is most necessary in a proper way; but such work as washing, paper-hanging, whitewashing, and hanging clothes up to dry, is the work that has serious results with the mother. My results after confinement can, I think, be traced to the lack of good nursing and good support—in such cases when one neighbour will nurse another one, having had no experience herself.
Wages 28s. 3d. to 37s. 6d.; five children, one miscarriage.