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!

My grandmother's book about pregnancy and caring for babies doesn't even have a chapter about giving birth.

First chapter is about looking after yourself in pregnancy (and not letting yourself go because that's not fair on your husband).

Second chapter is basically "so now you have a baby...".

Absolutely nothing about giving birth whatsoever. I don't think it was considered respectable to publish such things at the time or learn them from strangers, that was for your mother/sisters to tell you about.

I can't remember the first publishing date but it was the era you're talking about. Aside from the patriarchal enforcement and missing childbirth chapter, most of the rest of it is actually sound advice that's still considered to be evidence based. And probably better than some of the faddy rubbish that gets published now.

I think what we forget is that if it's normal to give birth at home then it's also normal to have attended the births of others and for knowledge to have been shared informally.

Even worse than now!

Wow this is a really fascinating thread

I'm going to take a look at the links for twilight births etc

Personally, I'm very glad to have given birth in the 21st century! Especially on hearing about how things used to be years ago...and not so long ago!

"A lot of fuss about nothing ", according to to my long dead grandmother, who had her children in the 1920s 🤣🤣

In 1937 my grandmother was in the early stages of labour and my grandfather must have been at work (shopkeeper). She told my 5yo father to ask her female neighbour to call the midwife and then to watch for her at the bedroom window and not to turn around under any circumstance.
It sounds like a very “women only, behind closed doors” way of going about it. At least for the working classes.

There is an apocryphal story in my family of a relative in the early 20th century giving birth to a baby in poor condition, then bundling baby up and jumping on a horse to get medical help. The mind boggles.

Twilight sleep is featured in The Bell Jar (I think about 1960) - as described upthread the women experience the pain but don't remember afterwards.

Actually hearing about it and a one of the things that sets Sylvia off on her depressive episode

I was born in the 1960s and sadly my mum is not with us 😞Am pretty certain that she was in hospital with 2 of us with pre eclampsia . I was born very quickly in a bath and sister in a bed pan 🤦‍♀️

I was born by 'twilight birth' in the 1980s, with forceps...I was stuck as I had my head tipped backwards so required extraction and the maternal sedation was considered merciful.

Funnily enough I was a bit fed up being pregnant with my first and glugged a mouthful of the stuff(90s) . My son was born crack of dawn the next day . Never tried with second , to busy to think about it so..

My Mum had to stay in hospital for 2 weeks after giving birth to my 3 older sisters. She only stayed in for 10 days for me and my younger sister. This is how long all women stayed in hospital. Mum told me babies were kept in the nursery and only brought through to be fed. Then wheeled away again. She said she was allowed to go down to the nursery after 1 week to see baby.

Queen Victoria loved having chloroform for the births of some of her younger children but she and her Dr's were very much criticised for it.

Before there was an understanding of the heredity genetic cause of haemophilia, her son Leopold having the condition was attributed by some Dr's and some of the media, to Queen Victoria having used chloroform during his birth.

Mum shaming even back then!

My Nan loved to tell the story of how she had to stay in bed for a week at home after having my mum and uncle. She couldn’t grasp the practice of leaving hospital within hours and carrying on with everyday life. That was the 50s

Thanks so much for all these replies, absolutely fascinating!
My grandmother's letter is pages long with so many intriguing details... after the birth she was delighted that her baby was allowed to stay by her side all day in a cot and was 'only taken away at night'. She was breastfeeding though so I wonder how night feeds were managed?

Despite all these details though there is barely a word about the actual labour - I can't work out if that's because she was in a drugged state and really didn't remember or because it was considered unseemly to mention contractions and pain, even to your husband! I've no idea if she was knocked out just for the last part as the baby seemed to be stuck - I'm assuming it was a forceps delivery - or if she was drugged throughout...

I found the quote from the Bell Jar, it’s horrifying! It is terrifying to think that this drug only made you forget the pain but didn’t actually deaden it.
Here’s the quote:

“Later Buddy told me the woman was on a drug that would make her forget she'd had any pain and that when she swore and groaned she really didn't know what she was doing because she was in a kind of twilight sleep. I thought it sounded just like the sort of drug a man would invent. Here was a woman in terrible pain, obviously feeling every bit of it or she wouldn't groan like that, and she would go straight home and start another baby, because the drug would make her forget how bad the pain had been, when all the time, in some secret part of her, that long, blind, doorless and windowless corridor of pain was waiting to open up and shut her in again.”
Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

Wow this is amazing. Obviously hospitals have their place, but equally often do more harm than good, especially with something natural like childbirth as you are often forced down the route if intervention which has worse outcomes for mother and baby as its more convenient for them

I find this stuff super interesting. I recently found an Instagram account - TimeTravelMum who does short little bits of history. She does mostly pregnancy, birth and infant feeding. Super interesting.

I was born 1966 in a 'maternity home'. Mum was kept in for 10 days to get me into a 'routine'. I was brought to mum every four hours for a (breast)feed. No more, no less.
No antenatal classes. Mum tore quite badly. Dad was out having a chinese takeaway during the labour!

In Susan Hill's book about having her three daughters she writes very interestingly about childbirth practices in hospital, but what really struck me was how well the mothers were looked after postnatally. They were so rested due to having the baby taken away at night - this seems barbaric for the baby now and I wouldn't have wanted this at all, but would have been amazing to have got some sleep after a traumatic birth experience! They were in for a week or ten days, having sometimes been moved to a nursing home. At one point she describes smelling fresh lemons being grated for the lunchtime lemon meringue pie - imagine being that well fed in a hospital!

I wasn't allowed to eat in 2004.

This is a very interesting thread. Thank you for the twilight sleep info - I am a midwife and remembered doing a presentation on this when I was a student but had forgotten the details!
There is some misinformation too on the thread, just for the record. Fundal or abdominal pressure during labour would never be recommended, as it could cause abruption (the placenta detaching) and serious bleeding. So could taking castor oil to induce labour, so please don’t anyone do that! Fundal massage might be used postnatally if you were bleeding too heavily.
It’s great that the poster above received such good care with a shoulder dystocia at home. Every midwife should know the manoeuvres to manage this at home or in hospital (I teach them to students in my current role…) Symphisiotomy is a last ditch attempt to manage shoulder dystocia - it’s taught as that but I’ve only once known it used clinically. I can imagine it would be horrific if used as described in Ireland and it takes an awful lot of recovering from.
I hadn’t remembered that twilight sleep was used as recently as the 1980s…shocking.

I'll join! Had a shoulder dystocia with an 11lb baby at my homebirth - brilliant independent midwife got him out and resuscitated him. All well. She's now a consultant midwife at a big London teaching hospital.

😀

My grandmother had a partial placenta previa in the early 60s.
She had a home birth in a small town but luckily thanks to a philanthropic gift from the local landowners we had a dedicated maternity hospital in the town.
It had a "flying squad" who were sent out but it was actually her own GP, who also attended, who managed to get a line into her collapsed veins and saved her life.

OMG...but how did she think the baby got in?