77. Care and Attention.
I am afraid the information I can give you about myself is not much, as I have been able to have the care and attention not attainable for many working-women. My first baby was still-born. This was really brought about by ignorance during pregnancy in trying to open a very stiff window, causing a strain, and also causing the cord to become twisted round the baby’s neck. Fortunately, I was able at once to receive medical attention, and when the child was born I had to have two doctors and nurse, chloroform, etc. Doctors both say I should have lost my life also if I had not had the attention I was able to have. The other two children were born under quite normal conditions—the symptoms of sickness, cholic pains, etc.—but I am glad to say I have never suffered from varicose veins, perhaps due to the fact that I have always been able to take rest during pregnancy.
My mother had thirteen children, and, as far as I can gather, suffered terribly at these times, because when a woman brings up ten children to full age she has not much time to rest. I may say one of hers was still-born, the other two dying, one at the age of nine months from vaccination, the other at three years and a half from concussion of the brain.
Mother died at the age of fifty-two years from Bright’s disease, brought on, I believe, from excessive child-bearing, and the doctor said every organ in her body was completely worn out. My mother had, perhaps, the care most women would not get, as my father was always in a good position earning a good salary—I may say £150 a year at that time. But with all those advantages, she could not have the care she ought, or the rest, and, of course, no trained nurses, as we have at the present time.
I often wonder when I read of the deaths of women, at from forty years of age upward, if, when they should be having the best of their lives, that their early deaths are due to lack of care and rest during the times they are having their babies.