To be enjoying reading this 'Complete Babycare' book from 1979?

[Kayano]

I asked my mum a bit of advice (how old normally when they roll over) and she cracked out this gem of a book

I am reading it like

Some choice quotes:
'pregnancy can be a very enjoyable time for women, a time when one can make the most of long days at home and seek out pursuits such as sewing or dressmaking...'

:O

'most women have slight swelling of the hands and fingers in late pregnancy'

This wouldn't be so bad if not accompanied by a pic of a woman looking all bolted and sadly having to lay down her knitting needles. Really!

'rest periods are also ideal times for embarking on practical preparations, like knitting baby clothes'
Accompanied by an enthusiastic knitter.

'once your baby is born you will spend even more time in the kitchen.'

I never spend time
In the kitchen unless I have run out of chocolate and need to make
Some emergency cake mix. I don't spend time in the kitchen now! If I do the night feed damn straight DH is cooking and sterilising the bottles

Thank god things have progressed!

This book was an edition published in the 1980s but you totally
Wouldn't think so! It's from m&s too!

I have a 1905 medical book I was checking for pictures of chicken pox (to see if the dts had come out in them yet) and read the childbirth part for the first time.

A nursing mother must stay calm and good tempered all the time or it will affect her milk (more likely the baby's mood).

There was a long column on checking your wet nurse's eyes, breathing, drinking and of course examining her breasts.

You had to spend 3 weeks in bed following birth and only get up an hour a day after 3 days and slowly build up.

However, the premature baby advice was very good and I wished I'd read it after the dts came as it's more than St Mary's told me! The 2 key things are feeding and warmth, feed little and often.

I was born in 1976. My Mum was told she must give me formula (SMA formula was the fashionable one then). Breastfeeding was not looked apon as a good thing to do then. The midwives were absolutely shocked at her extremely advanced age - a FIRST child at 40!!!???? Very unusual in thise days apparrently.

My MIL says they did her C Section with a vertical cut- she gave birth in 1967. Why did they do them like this in those days?

My mum was another 26 year old who was told she was old to be having a first baby. She was also told she must use formula and put babies to sleep on their fronts. She ignored both these pieces of advice, but said she was considered "a bit of a weird hippy type" for breastfeeding. This was in 1974.

I had a very premature DD in 1979. The HV told me I must put her face down to sleep as it prevented cot death.
She visited every day including Sundays for the first month at home (first 7 weeks in SCBU) to make sure I was doing it.
I hated it as DD couldn't lift her head and was squashed face down so I couldn't see her properly, but I was afraid to disobey.

balloonslayer the Miriam Stoppard book with the sink in the corner was the same one that advocated the cork floor tiles. What an attractive bedroom that would be...
I have my oldest DD's red book that advocated weaning any time from 3 months (though ideally 4) - that was 1993. I was at least past the "adding to a bottle" years, I was a bit surprised the other day at a friend's house where granny was giving my friend's DD a bottle with added rusk or some sort of cereal in. Admittedly the DD is nearly 1, not a newborn, but I still didn't think you were supposed to do this?

i almost threw the Gordon Bourne book out the window when it said that after giving birth you should brush your hair and apply some make up. And advised fathers to be that pregnant women are often irrational.

:O

I totally put on makeup about an hour after dd was born...

But not
For DH! For the photos for
The Facebook announcement! shallow as fcuk

I'm totes modern

PP, it was because it was easy for them as it allows a larger space to deliver the baby. The vertical cut meant more complications and blood loss, but I wonder if this was much of a worry as long as the baby was removed.

I also think the cosmetic implications weren't important back then to the medical profession. Women were supposed to be grateful they went home from the hospital alive, and with a live baby, no matter how scarred or bruised they were. The emotional issues arising from obstetrical procedures were not acknowledged.

I remember my aunt having her first baby at 28 back in 1979. When she married the previous year, my entire family had breathed a sigh of relief because they had spent the previous 3 years speculating on whether she had 'left it too late' to have children (yes really). During pregnancy she was under consultant only care because she was classed as an 'elderly primagravida' (first time mum). This was written in red on the top of her notes. After my cousin was born, she complained about being the oldest at the baby clinic and new mums group. DH's step mum gave birth to his brother in 1985 aged 35. She too had consultant care due to her 'advanced' age, and always talks as though her conception and live birth were a medical miracle (and this was at a large London teaching hospital). When I had DC4 aged 34, she was amazed that I attended the standard midwife antenatal clinic at the GP surgery. My friend's mum married in 1968, aged 29, and was warned by her GP that she had probably "left it too late" to have children. Imagine her surprise when she conceived on her honeymoon and went on to have two more children, all in the space of three years!

Another described on her notes as "elderly prim" here - had my first baby at 27, in 1974.

I was the only one breastfeeding in my large ward - to prevent embarrassment (she said), the ward sister used to come to my corner, pull the curtains round me, check her watch, and say "I'll be back in ten minutes. 5 minutes each side" - and march off. Oh, and that was the 5th day. On the first, I was only allowed 2 minutes each side.

I was induced at 42 weeks. Taken in and shaved with a dry razor (women didn't shave, pluck and wax themselves back in those hippy days), soapy water enema inserted - and left in the ward toilet for as long as it took...occasionally a nurse would knock on the door to ask if I hadn't finished yet. When I finally crawled out of the loo, drained and weak, I was put on the bed, my waters were broken, and I was hooked up to a drip. My son was born 8 hours later, after an routine episiotomy "to prevent prolapse in later life (ha bloody ha)". After the briefest of cuddles, he was taken to the night nursery "to let me sleep".

In the morning, a nurse appeared with my son and announced that she'd given him a bottle of formula in the night - his first feed! It makes me seethe now, but one didn't challenge hospital rules. "We always check to see that baby is feeding properly" she said.

In the years which followed, there was a definite softening in attitude towards new mothers and by the time I had my last baby in 1986, I was pretty much left to get on with doing things my way.

I had the corktiles/sink in the nursery Miriam Stoppard book that I bought in 1992! My fondest memory of that book was the fashion advice! Lots of pencil drawn pictures of a woman in dunagrees with a very large hat, in a Princess Di style dress complete with floppy neck bow and wearing her husbands waistcoat! Oh, and one of a complete naked woman sitting on a chair which I only remember because she the HUGEST areoli I have ever seen (and a bad perm) :o

Its funny when I think about the differences between my first and last birth.

DC1 was born in 1990 and I got the routine episiotomy, out of 20 women at my friends antenatal class (I concealed my pg, at 17, so didnt go) only one didnt get the cut and she gave birth in the car on the way to hospital . I wasnt asked if I wanted an epidural, the MW said that it was time for it and I was just given one, although to be fair they did know that I had had no antenatal care at all, and had no idea what to do in labour so she may have done it because I really didnt know what i was doing. I was incredibly grateful when it went in!

I wasnt asked how I was feeding, just told that he would be on SMA and when I asked about BF I was told I was too young and to just bottle feed as I would thank them later, I never did figure out what I should thank them for! I was due to be discharged after 3 days which was standard, but had to stay a couple more due to jaundice. When he was due to be weaned at 12 weeks I was given a weaning sheet that included raw egg yolk stirred into other meals to give him some protein. This was literally a few weeks before the Edwina Curry egg thing and they came round to us after that happened and told us to take it off our lists! If you didnt go every week to get the baby weighed you werent exactly expected to explain yourself, but they were "interested" in why you didnt go! Oh and the health visitor came weekly for the first 6 months which I thought was because I was a young single mother, but my friend who was 22 and married got it too!

Cut to DC6 born last year. I had her at home and was actively encouraged to stay there when I was beginning to think I couldnt do it. The MW talked me through it and gave me the confidence to stick with it. They only didnt assume that I was BF because I had told them in my PG about my breast surgery, and they asked what i was giving her and did I mind if they stayed until she had fed. The MW visited for the first 3 days until I lost the bit of retained sace and then didnt visit again until day 7, then every other day until DD regained her birth weight at 14 days and that was only so they could sign me off asap! I have seen the HV once since she was born and have absolutely no idea what she weighs, just that she is growing into and out of her clothes at the right rate!

I dont remember much about DC1's birth :( I was so brainfucked. I have always felt that his birth was done to me, iykwim. Whereas I was in control with DC6, it was totally different.

sac not sace!

My DD was born in Kenya in 2006. Kenya baby magazines were an eye opener. One of the comments I can remember was from a man who complained that his wife was feeling ill, and so couldn't tell the maid that the washing needed doing.
Most Kenyans would not find this shocking, it is a reflection of society there.

I was however more shocked reading a US parenting forum. Two threads I remember.
The woman who felt sick when she was washing up and so her husband stuck tissues up her nose.
Another woman who didn't feel up to having sex and so her husband accused her of having an affair. The advice she was given was mainly about showing him evidence about why this was normal. My thought was "leave the bastard" - I should have been on Mumsnet!

saintlyjimjams the funny thing about the Gordon Bourne book (you and I have both said the same thing) to me is that there are loads of threads on here with us all roaring with laughter about the irrational/emotional things we have done when pregnant and hormonal, yet when you read something like that: written by a MAN, about WOMEN to other MEN, we get the red mist!

Maybe the same US forum I read? It went something like:

"If the doctor tells you not to have sex while you're pregnant then you need to give your husband loads of blow jobs. This is the problem with some women, they don't give blow jobs or sex and then act surprised when he cheats."

A couple of responses from women who have better husbands than that but the majority of the posts along the lines of:

"I gave my husband blow jobs on demand."

"I had anal sex with him every day to keep him happy."

"My husband needs sex every day so I ignored what the doctor told me."

Bleurgh.

Bogeyface, I have that book!!!!!! The naked woman does look strange ....

In 1987, when DD was born, I had to specify no shave and episiotomy and put it in big letters on my birth plan.

We had an awful lot of antenatal checks, but for the hospital booking in one, it was considered perfectly acceptable to get all the women booked in at the same time for the same appointment, say, 2pm, and then keep some of them sitting around pretty much doing nothing for up to three hours before they were seen. There was a lot of stripping off - you were advised to bring your own bathrobe - and being inspected for quality and weighed as though you were a piece of meat. I remember my nipples being insulted by the obstetrician (I went on to feed four children perfectly successfully so I have no idea what he was banging on about) and also my paperwork had repeated mentions of me being a 'young unmarried primagravida' all over the place (I was quite obviously in a perfectly stable - at the time - relationship, with an eternity ring on my finger, an interested bloke in well paid work, and he had a massive private income to boot - my address was a ruddy stately home FFS!)

The sole effort made at the hospital to modernity seemed to be a little mirror on the wall at the end of the bed, behind a little curtain, so you could ask for a 'reveal' whilst pushing out. (YUK!)

You stayed 5 days after a first baby, two weeks after a CS. I buggered off after 12 hours because the place was seriously filthy and there was little in the way of nursing, it being a Sunday, and I worked out I would be much better cared for at home.

We were also supposed to go to the baby clinic all the time, but I went once, saw all the coughs and colds around me, and realised this was daft. I just kept an eye on DD's growth at home by seeing if she was growing out of her clothes, etc.

There was a lot of bollocks spoken about bf - we were supposed to clean our nipples with antiseptic before feeding (which wrecks your nipples as it strips out the natural oils), feed three hourly and having put the baby in their own room, trot over there in the middle of the night to feed, sitting upright in a chair. I ignored all that, stuck her in a moses basket next to my bed, or even in the bed, and fed her lying down in the night. She even had a massive duvet specially sent over from Bavaria when it was cold, as the house was very old and therefore often freezing. A poxy little cellular blanket wasn't going to do the job (as indeed it doesn't in the Alps). I walked around with her in a sling all day, with her feeding constantly.

I went private for the next birth and much better it all was too - independent midwife, who left me alone to get on with things a lot of the time.

Maybe not the same forum Handle with Care but a similar one. I am sure I read the my husband needs sex every day comment. There were some very worried about how he would manage after the birth.

Sorry Fondle not Handle.

babyboomers said Taken in and shaved with a dry razor (women didn't shave, pluck and wax themselves back in those hippy days), soapy water enema inserted - and left in the ward toilet for as long as it took...occasionally a nurse would knock on the door to ask if I hadn't finished yet. When I finally crawled out of the loo, drained and weak, I was put on the bed, my waters were broken, and I was hooked up to a drip. My son was born 8 hours later, after an routine episiotomy "to prevent prolapse in later life (ha bloody ha)". After the briefest of cuddles, he was taken to the night nursery "to let me sleep".

This is similar to my first born at that time. Horrible experience. Also was asked if it would be ok for students to watch obstetrician take blood sample from poor baby's head. I'd expected a couple of young doctors, got a dozen new nursing staff, obviously new from the look of horror on their faces at full frontal of my stretched fanjo with accompanying piles, legs firmly strapped into stirrups. AAAAaagh!

16 months later I had my next and all had changed, no shaving, no enema. I put it down to Esther Rantzens tv prog where they gave alot of publicity to how badly women were treated when pregnant.

I have read Mrs Beeton's book from 1861. It promotes breastfeeding for mothers, and provides a strict diet to breastfeeding mothers and wet-nurses. I seem to recall they had to drink a pint of stout about four times a day.

This edition of the book also advised introducing solids from birth. That seems to have changed a few decades later.

I had my first baby in 1973 in Hospital and they fed all bottle fed babies on Carnation milk, and so I carried on after I got home six days later.

I have just read in a Sheila Kitzinger book that hyperemesis is a physcological condition brought on by dysfunctional relationships, and all that is needed is a trip to hospital to get away from everything....

Can you IMAGINE having HE and being told this?

I have a cracking 1950s "Guide to a Happy Marriage" (or similar) that DH and I bought together for a laugh! 'Tis hilarious and very quotable!

sorry about the spelling.