Did women always used to give birth lying down? (Call the Midwife)

[DontCallMeMaybe]

I've been watching a lot of Call the Midwife (possibly a silly idea as I'm due next week), and every birth in it shows the woman lying down on her back for delivery.

From what I've heard and also what I experienced when I last gave birth, this isn't generally the most comfortable or efficient position... I know I couldn't lie or even sit down.

So I'm curious to know if this is lazy filming or is this really how women gave birth in the 50s/60s?

Anyone know?

In first season of Call The Midwife you almost never see women delivering on their backs. It's almost always on all fours, standing or on their sides. In the later seasons you start to see lying on the back positions a lot more. This is because the NHS and male doctors became much more involved in child birth.

Ok, so in the CTM book(s, I can't remember which one it was mentioned in or if it was all of them) Jenny talked about how it was the 'done thing' to have women labouring/birthing on their backs, and women were heavily encouraged into that position on the bed. Some of the older midwives would get quite cross if women did not do that.

Interestingly, a recent study has shown almost no difference in outcomes for women adopting supine or upright positions for delivery, suggesting that it's pretty much fine whatever the woman wants/is comfortable with.

Watching a recent documentary, midwives, most of them lie flat strapped to equipment.

I'm 40 and I've not got children so my only experience of child birth is from Call the Midwife. Excuse my ignorance but what position would someone be in for it?

Lots of options - on back is one but also could be standing/leaning, on all fours, squatting down...

I didn't realise! Never given it much thought until now!

With first I was initially in the birthing pool but things turned urgent and I had to deliver on my back. I think it's harder to use things like forceps/ventouse if you're not on your back. Second again an emergency but c-section

In defence of lying down, left lateral (lying on your side with leg up in the air) is an excellent position for delivery. Very good for reducing perineal tearing. On your back not so good but honestly I struggle to get women off their backs and moving around a lot of the time. So many women seem to want to adopt this position, which is baffling to me as for me there was nothing worse in labour! I do wonder if there is some social conditioning going on there...

Also with an epidural this is really one of the only positions that works. You can try hands and knees but many women don't have the leg strength for it.

Yes, normal in the 50s and 60s. I read an account from a junior midwife in the 60s who was caring for a woman in hospital who wanted to be upright. The midwife was begging the woman to get back in the bed as she was so scared of being caught by a more senior midwife. They compromised with the woman standing on the bed!

Like Bue I struggle to get a lot of women off their backs/off the bed. Most will listen when you explain the benefits but some say they're just too tired. Some aren't even keen on left lateral!

I guess some of the change has come from the number of births a formal midwife will need to attend compared to the village wise woman.

I might be wrong but I don't imagine that the wise woman role was a full time job and other women such as the labouring woman's mother would come and be very hands on following the wise woman's direction.

A midwife spending 40h a week with a significant amount of it in awkward positions the physical toll on the midwife' body would add up.

I had my 3 all laying down (3rd was back to back too), I couldn't have physically moved into a different position even if i had wanted too!

I had my first squatting in a birth pool. Second, on all fours on a bed. Both were just positions I got myself in.

I was too tired to move much though, and had labours been longer, I don’t know...

@DontCallMeMaybe the water birth was lovely ☺️ Do consider it if it’s been suggested.

My DMum was a HCP in the 1950s.

Many women gave birth lying on their sides (which is a good position) with the most junior person present steadying the top leg.

She things the enforced lying-on-back came in during the 1960s, when more births moved to hospital, and that women have been trying to break that stranglehold since the Active Birth movement of the 1970s.

I knelt throughout but the only reason I could is that I was mostly in the pool. Even then my knees ached after.
But I’ve not done nearly as much kneeling down as most lower class women would have in the past. We’re all much worse these days at kneeling and squatting than our ancestors were.
In my pregnancy yoga class we practised positions and did some length strengthening squats.

I gave birth on my back, I was stood up holding the bed in labour but I was asking for diamorphine & the midwife said she couldn’t check me unless I lay on the bed.
It was agony. In the end it was too quick to have any drugs so I had to push a 9lb baby out back to back with no pain relief. I didn’t even have gas & air for pushing - I wanted to kill myself.
Next time I want an epidural as soon as possible like I had with DS1!!

I gave birth in the Middle East last year and was made to labour on my back.

At one point, as I lay there screaming with two obstetricians between my legs and a baby who would not budge (this was right before they started ventouse) I remember shouting 'I want to be on all fours!'

The obstetrician said 'that's an interesting idea' and then proceeded with ventouse.

Irrelevant to the thread really but thought I'd mention that it does still happen.

I gave birth on my back each time. I was tired (middle of the night) and definitely wanted to lie down. I can imagine that lots of women in the past, struggling with a long exhausting labour without pain relief, would want to lie down too.

I was upright and mobile with a mobile epidural until I started to need to push. They lay me on my back to examine me but when I said no the midwife was more than happy to help me kneel up holding on to the head of the bed.

Didn't help, DD still got monumentally stuck and needed forceps. On my back with stirrups for that obviously.

No. Went to
Danish medical
Museum. They had a birthing chair. From 16 the century. You sat in to like a normal
Chair: thick wooden arms. You gripped the wooden arms when you had a contraction. There were some very deep indentations in it where people had scraped the wood! About 2 inches think 😥

I had mine in the late 80s and was made to lie on my back. The last one was born in the 90s and I delivered on my side with somebody holding my top leg.

My kids are 5 and 3 and it was insisted I lay on my back so they could monitor blood pressure

Yes, it was one of the Louis in France, he wanted to see the queen give birth, and lying down was more dignified than squatting.

I was on all fours but the midwife made me lie of my back, despite having written it in my birth plan because I had spd. The only reason she forced me onto my back was it was easier for her (despite not needing any interventions).

I gave birth on my back for all of my children in the 80s and 90s. Was offered in every case the opportunity to squat, walk around etc but I just wanted to lie down as I felt so tired, sore and my legs were shaky. I don't know anyone who hasn't given birth lying down - all through choice. Can't imagine why you would want to give birth squatting or on all fours, to my mind really uncomfortable.

I gave birth with all 3 lying on my back, most recent less than 2 months ago.