My first baby was born before I was twenty. I was a weaver, and worked hard until after the eighth month. I had a very hard labour, and cannot tell you very much, as I was unconscious before the baby was born. The first thing I knew was my mother standing over me trying to keep me awake. The doctor said I was not to go to sleep for two hours, or I should not waken again. The child was a big boy, and was crushed with being born and obstruction. Then inflammation took place, and he only lived four days. I was soon downstairs again and at work. I was seven years before I had another—a girl; then I had another boy. The two are now grown up, and I have said good-bye to weaving. I hope my two children will have a better time than I have had.
Wages 19s. to 23s.; three children.
139. Drugs.
I know personally of many mothers who have had very dreadful times of sickness all through the time, and others who have not been able to have the necessary food to strengthen them—some through having bad or careless husbands, others through shortness of work; and, I am sorry to say, those who have felt they would not carry children, some because of bad husbands, others because they felt they could not properly feed and clothe those they had. There are three who lost their lives, and another who has already had seven. These all took some kind of drug, and of course did the work they wanted it to do. The doctor felt sorry for this woman and could not blame her. She has had difficulty in rearing these seven. When she was able to get out, I saw her and talked seriously to her, but she said: “Mrs. ——, I will not have any more by him, and I should not have cared if I had died.” She loved her children, and has had months of sleepless nights with each of the seven. It seems to me, had Government awakened to its duty years ago, seeing to it that the mothers and children should have what was necessary, mothers would not have minded having the children, had they known each little one would be provided for. We should now have a stronger and healthier race of men and women. One does not wonder at the sickly boys and girls one meets in the streets, especially when one knows under what circumstances they were born, and how and what their mothers had to bear before they came.
140. Got up the Fifth Day.
I feel that we women ought to discuss this question, because working women often suffer terribly at these times with having to get up soon after confinement: I myself being a great sufferer with bad legs through getting up on the fifth day, although I had a doctor and midwife to attend me. But I lived in a place where the women and girls went to work in the mills, and could not get a woman to stay in the home, and I was often left without for many hours. When the midwife came, she advised me to have a bottle of stout and biscuits beside the bed; but I refused, because I had never taken stout, and I thought no food better than that. And I have trouble to this day with my legs. Although well cared for during the last two confinements, it has never remedied the unfortunate position of the first confinement.
Wages 30s.; three children.
141. A Family of Fifteen.
I have had a very large family (fifteen). Out of all these confinements I have only had my husband in work at the time twice. Several times he was sick, and other times it was hard winters, and as he was in the building trade, he could not work if very frosty or very wet, so you will see that I have known what it was to be often very short. With this result, that when my sixth child was born, my health failed, which would not have been the case if I had not had to go short. I also had so much worry, and was unable at the time of carrying the child to have any help, however poorly I felt. For a number of years I was in a very weak state of health, which the doctor said was the result of not being properly looked after.
Wages 24s. and upwards; fifteen children.