8. Boil mugwort in water till it be very soft; then take it out, and apply it in the manner of a poultice to the navel of the labouring woman, and it instantly brings away the birth and after-birth. But special care must be taken to remove it as soon as they come away, lest by its longer tarrying it should draw away the womb also.
Sect. IV. Of Laborious and Difficult Labours, and how the Midwife is to proceed therein.
There are three sorts of bad labours, all painful and difficult, but not all properly unnatural. It will be necessary therefore to distinguish these.
The first of these labours is that wherein the mother and child suffer very much by extreme pain and difficulty, even though the child come right; and this is distinguishably called the laborious labour.
The second is that which is difficult, and differs not much from the former, except that, besides those extraordinary pains, it is generally attended with some unhappy accident, which by retarding the birth, causes the difficulty: but these difficulties being removed, it accelerates the birth, and hastens the delivery.
Some have asked, what is the reason that women bring forth their children with so much pain? I answer, the sense of feeling is distributed to the whole body by the nerves; and the mouth of the womb being so strait that it must of necessity be dilated at the time of the woman’s delivery, the dilating thereof stretches the nerves, and from thence comes the pain. And therefore the reason why some women have more pain in their labour than others, proceeds from their having the mouth of the matrix more full of nerves than others. The best way to remove those difficulties that occasion hard pains and labour, is to show first from whence they proceed. Now the difficulty of labour proceeds either from the mother, or child, or both.
From the mother, by reason of the indisposition of the body, or from some particular part only, and chiefly the womb, as when the woman is weak, and the mother is not active to expel the burden, or from weakness or disease, or want of spirits; or it may be from some strong passion of the mind with which she was once possessed; she may be too young, and so may have the passage too strait; or too old, and then, if it be her first child, because her pains are too dry and hard, and cannot easily be dilated, as happens also to them which are too lean; likewise those who are either small, short or deformed, as crooked women, who have not breath enough to help their pains, and to bear them down, and persons that are crooked having sometimes the bones of the passage not well shaped. The cholic also hinders labour, by preventing the true pains; and all great and active pains, as when the woman is taken with a violent fever, a great flooding, frequent convulsions, bloody flux, or any other great distemper. Also, excrements retained cause much difficulty, and so does a stone in the bladder or when the bladder is full of urine, without being able to void it; or when the woman is troubled with great and painful piles. It may also be from the passages, when the membranes are thick, the orifice too strait, and the neck of the womb not sufficiently open, the passages pressed and strained by tumours in the adjacent parts, or when the bones are too firm, and will not open, which very much endangers the mother and child; or when the passages are not slippery, by reason of the waters being broke too soon, or the membranes being too thin. The womb may also be out of order with respect to its bad situation, or conformation, having its neck too strait, hard, and callous, which may easily be so naturally, or may come by accident, being many times caused by a tumor, an imposthume, ulcer, or superfluous flesh.
As to hard labour occasioned by the child it is when the child happens to stick to a mole, or when it is so weak it cannot break the membranes; or if it be too big all over, or at the head only, or if the natural vessels are twisted about its neck; when the belly is hydropical; or when it is monstrous, having two heads, or joined to another child; also, when the child is dead, or so weak that it can contribute nothing to its birth; likewise when it comes wrong; or when there are two or more. And to all these various difficulties there is oftentimes one more, and that is, the ignorance of the midwife, who, for want of understanding in her business, hinders nature in her work instead of helping her.
Having thus looked into the cases of hard labour, I will now show the industrious midwife how she may minister some relief to the labouring woman under these difficult circumstances. But it will require judgment and understanding in the midwife, when she finds a woman in difficult labour, to know the particular obstruction, or cause thereof, that so a suitable remedy may be applied; as, for instance, when it happens by the mother’s being too young or too strait, she must be gently treated, and the passages anointed with oil, hog’s lard, or fresh butter, to relax and dilate them the easier, lest there should happen a rupture of any part when the child is born; for sometimes the peritoneum breaks, with the skin from the privities of the fundament.
But if the woman be in years with her first child, let her lower parts be anointed to mollify the inward orifice, which, in such a case being more hard and callous, does not easily yield to the distention of labour, which is the true cause why such women are longer in labour, and also why their children, being forced against the inward orifice of the womb (which, as I have said, is a little callous) are born with great humps and bruises on their heads.