What was childbirth like 100 years ago?

[GracieNotes]

This may seem like a strange question, but I've been reading through my grandmother's letters and there is one from 1930 where she is writing to her husband (in another country), describing having their first child.
She was in a private nursing home in the UK, and writes about being made to take castor oil to hurry things along and also not being allowed to get up from the bed (before or after the birth!)
The really interesting thing is that she describes how the midwife/doctor had to deliver the baby for her in the end as she was struggling (very big baby), and she was seemingly unconscious. Does anyone know if this was normal or what would have been administered. Chloroform? I googled this and read about something called 'twilight' births, where mothers were given morphine and another drug, which took away the pain but also made them forget the details of the birth (so they were,'t unconscious but very strongly sedated). But I'm not sure this was in use in the 1930s still.
If anyone has any insights, would love to hear!

Chloroform was definitely around by then - Queen Victoria used it during childbirth (1853) so it would have been pretty mainstream 80 years on from that.

Twilight sleep is mentioned in the Mapp and Lucia novels (written early 1930s, set in the 20s/30s) as a known thing (not an innovation) so must have been pretty common - at least for the middle and upper classes who could afford more medicalised care.

Didn’t the queen have twilight births? Knocked out and baby pulled out? Barbaric however it happened.

I was thinking this too

My mum took castor oil with me (I'm not 100 though) her waters broke but I still didn't come after a day, so she was blue lighted to the nearest biggest hospital and was induced on a drip.
Seems to me i wasn't ready but the castor oil must've done something...

This sounds about right. Brag incoming : my great great great grandfather was the doctor who first used chloroform in childbirth . James Young Simpson.

Sedation was used right through the 50's but only in hospitals and there was a class divide, poorer women mostly gave birth at home or in small local maternity units. More common in private hospitals too. Very weird to me though.

But exactly how did that work? If the mother is sedated she can't push??

Sounds terribly painful

Hence the need for forceps.

I can share a story about my birth in the 1960s.

I was almost 2 weeks late and so Mum was taken in for a cesarean.

They put her in a room to wait which has placentas in the sink. It terrified her - she didn't know what they were. She asked the nurse who came to take her to the ward and that's how she found out.

She was put on a ward to wait for surgery and in that room were mother's of babies, mothers that had miscarried and one that had a still birth. However, all babies were kept in a nursery, and brought in only for feeding.

My Mum was in hospital for two weeks post surgery during which they once brought her the wrong baby from the nursery. I had a mop.of dark hair, so she knew immediately.

In the meantime my Dad registered the birth and did it under the wrong name! It was one they had chosen, but they were going to change it to something else but he had forgotten!

I had my 3rd and 4th at home I didn't need any pain relief and had no urge to push.

Probably better than we get now?

It is the worst maternity scandal in the history of the NHS. Over two decades at Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Trust hundreds of babies were left brain damaged or dead Bereaved mothers were blamed for the deaths of their babies.

My mum was premature, born v under weight in the early 30s, she always put down her survival to the midwives and her own mum.

In the early days of understanding about germs, there was an idea that everything had to be sterile. So shave pubes, apply antiseptic, give caster oil to make you empty your bowels or give an enema to do the same thing. I think up to the 70s enemas and shaving were routine.

The same mindset had newborns being held as little as possible to keep germs away, until they realised babies who were cuddled had better chances of survival, probably due to stress levels - sob.

My GM gave birth in 50s, midwife always visited her at home, no mention of hospital birth, same midwife all through who attended delivery as well.

It would just have been more risky as at home, on the other hand people were probably younger when having first baby and often were fitter because life involvd more manual labour and walking etc.

My mother was KO'd for childbirth in hospital during the 60s.

My grandmothers gave birth at home, assisted by district nurses, so there was no medication involved. One grandmother lost her mother and newborn sibling to childbirth complications a generation previously.

The uterine contractions will push the baby along some of the way.

My grandma was knocked out to have my mum in the 1940s (just pre NHS). It was apparently a very difficult birth and left her unable to have any more children. I don't know the exact details as she was from a generation that didn't discuss "that sort of thing".

Depends how much money you had.

My mother had a cervical block in the 60s in hospital. It seems to have been a thing then that turned out not to be so good.

Enema's were used right up to '89 when I was born, as my mum was told she'd be having one but she refused

My nan always claimed she was given a pill to knock her out and awoke to find my mum had been born. This was at a small, community type setting in the 1940's, not a hospital. She died last year at age 102, and always claimed she didn't recall my mothers birth at all!

Wow, these comments are all really interesting and loving it that we have a descendant of the doc who first used chloroform for labour on the thread @ladygindiva ! How amazing.
I honestly had never heard of mothers being knocked out to deliver … obviously can’t have been a good thing? Though the lack of pain relief must have made it tempting!
My GM writes of waking up woozy to find her baby delivered.. well over 9lb and a record for the nursing home apparently.

@coxesorangepippin if you’re calm and relaxed your body will just push the baby out, no need for active pushing. The uterus is a muscle. With my second I did no ‘pushing’, I just kept breathing through the contractions with gas and air and my body did all the work

My mother had no memory of my birth in the fifties. She had to go for a repair op when I was five. Possibly because she couldn't push. I gave birth in the seventies and was not allowed to eat or drink for the entire 9 hour labour. I think midwives are kinder these days.

Is castor oil still a thing? It was used by overdue women when my son was born 18 years ago, though must have been slightly frowned upon because Boots etc wouldn’t sell it to a pregnant woman!

The ‘other’ drug given with morphine in twilight births was probably scopolamine - amongst its effects it relaxes the uterus so reduces the usefulness of contractions, and probably contributed to the increased rate of assisted deliveries. Both drugs also cross the placenta and so could contribute to poor neonatal condition as well as increasing the risk to the mother.

I'm reading this wondering why they haven't covered twilight births in call the midwife. 🤔