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 grandparents lived in the East End docks area, and were very poor. So much so that she had suffered malnutrition and rickets as a child. She gave birth to my Dad, her first child in 1928 in a nursing home, must have been a charity thing, no NHS then! It was standard for mothers to "lay in" for 10 days after birth and after that, presumably due to her poor state of health, she and the child were sent to a convalescence home on the Kent coast for 6 weeks. My grandfather saw them only once whilst they were in Kent as he couldn't afford to get there. Breastfeeding mothers were given a a half pint of stout in the evenings, it was said to help with milk production. For my grandmother it certainly did; surprisingly, given her state of health, she fed not only own baby she also wet nursed some of those whose mothers were struggling to produce. After that, when she came home, she quite naturally wanted to show off her new baby, but couldn't do that until she and the baby had been "churched". That meant you had to go to church to give thanks for the safe delivery of mother and child. She and my grandad were the least religious people I have ever met, but apparently it was the done thing in those days.

It was extremely dangerous for kids playing around the docks, there were plenty of drownings and kids being run over by lorries, and the authorities wanted to do something about that so there were school places from early on. So, aged 3, my Dad was packed off to nursery school. It was quite a long way away, and he remembers being carried there on a big boy's shoulders. He couldn't wait until lunchtime, so he ate his condensed milk sandwiches sat up there, and in later years has mused how the poor boy got the crumbs and stickiness out of his hair - bath once a week in those days, alongside a dose of castor oil, so you were clean inside and out!

I had my dc in 98. Placenta praevia so obviously c section.

I was in for 7 days after but they wanted to keep me and other placenta praevia patient in for 10 days. As we had both in for weeks before due to bleeding we discharged ourselves at 7 days.

2nd dc emergency c section I was sent home after 4 days.

Orange juice and castor oil shaken up together was given at the local maternity hospital to get things moving - the matron called it a 'cocktail'!

My answer would be painful, dangerous and terrifying in most cases.

It was horrifying 100 years ago…maternal and fetal mortality about 3-5 percent.
Being pregnant and giving birth is still the most dangerous part of a woman and babies life..
we are lucky in modern times.

My grandmother gave birth to my mother (1940) and her sisters in a hospital / maternity unit.

There wasn't room at the normal maternity hospital and the place she gave birth had been the workhouse, her mother was apparently mortified but my grandmother liked it so went back for her other births.

She always said she didn't like the way babies were handed to their mothers, in her day the baby was whisked off while mother was cleaned up and then when you were on the ward and had your tea and toast you were brought a clean dressed baby.

I was born in 1966 and home births were common. My mother only managed to have me in hospital because she had a friend who was a midwife and pulled some strings because my brother had been a difficult birth (3 day labour).

The norm was you had your first and fourth babies in hospital / maternity home.

@Noseyoldcow my mother was also 'churched' but I think it was done at the same time as baptism of the child. Baptisms happened quite quickly, my brother was born in late November and baptised before Xmas.

l had this in 2006 with dd.

Someone I spoke to recently who gave birth in the 1980s talked of the midwives visiting daily for 2 weeks after birth

In the Netherlands 30% of births happen at home and all babies are assigned a maternity nurse who visits every day for the first week for a number of hours.

In Switzerland, a midwife visits up to 16 times in the first 2 months for first babies and up to 10 times for subsequent babies.

My dad was born in a rural village in Oxfordshire in 1942 - the midwife was called but she couldn't get there due to snow- so my grandad went to a nearby farm and got the farmers wife - he was delivered at home in healthy condition ( I suppose she was used to assisting ewes with lambing !!)

What I find fascinating is that the UK maternal mortality fell from 45 in a 1000 live births in 1940 where it had been since the Victorian days, to 4 in 1000 by 1955, at which time the caesarean rate was still only about 3%. At this time 1 in 3 women were giving birth at home.

I'm wondering how much modern surgery played a part, and antibiotics, and how much was down to better maternal health among working class women as a result of the birth of the NHS and the welfare state.

My Gran had her first baby in 1920
On the kitchen floor with only rags to bite down on . There was no trained midwife only an old dear from up the road who had had loads of kids and had helped with the births of her neighbours . An un qualified community midwife . Her afterbirth was wrapped in newspaper and thrown in a dustbin . Salt water was used to bathe her vagina . She said if you had other kids it was business as usual no time to rest .

Gosh, that sounds a bit brutal @InkySplott
Must have been really scary waiting for your baby to be born knowing that so many mothers died in childbirth. I may well have been in trouble in that scenario as my first was over 10 pounds and her shoulders got stuck.

One of my grandmothers had 14 children including a set of twins between 1938-1956 in rural Ireland. All born at home with a local woman who was an unofficial midwife present for all but one of the births (My Dad! Her 12th child, who came too quickly for her to have time to send for anyone).

No pain relief. All healthy babies (although sadly two of them died in early childhood of diphtheria).

My other grandmother had my Mum in a London hospital in 1946 and had a forceps delivery and quite bad birth injuries. She waited five years to have a second child and chose a home birth as she was so traumatised by her first birth. She found it hard to talk about even in old age. She said the staff were horrible and cold and the whole experience was terrifying.

Better housing too.

Slum clearances were paused during the war and of course lots of housing was destroyed in areas like the London docklands.

The prefabs that were built post war had a minimum floor area, and an indoor bathroom and some are still in use today.

My local council are currently replacing the tarran bungalows and the move was not welcomed by the occupants.

Elizabeth Jane Howard’s autobiography, Slipstream, gives a horrifying description of childbirth in a private maternity home in the early 1940s. Being affluent middle/upper class was not then necessarily protective against brutal and inhumane treatment.

Yes, I had this in 2005 and 2009 with DDs. Community midwives.

My grandmother died from childbirth in 1921. She actually had a qualified midwife, her own mum. She got an infection.

My step grandmother and my other grandmother delivered each others babies. All well, except one brain damaged from prolonged labour and one lived seven hours. This baby had a deformed head and airway. My grandfather took her to be buried in a shoebox.

It was utterly brutal and only 90 years ago.

Yes, hard to imagine that was a part of day- to-day life 90 years ago. Waiting for labour to start must have been so daunting !

What a claim to fame! Incredible man and achievements. I was born in Simpsons and had two of my babies there, an Edinburgh institution for so long.

I wasn’t allowed to eat in 2023! Scheduled for a section (various clinical reasons, any one alone not a deal breaker but all together not worth the risk). Went into labour naturally and was ‘first on the list’ except higher priorities kept coming in so it was was 16hours until I went up and was nil by mouth the whole time. Ended up being almost 24h I didn’t eat. That was worse than the labour.

My older brother was born there and when my mum tried to tell staff about being related to THE Simpson she thinks they thought she was delusional 🤣

Wow thats so cruel.

My grandparents are from North Africa. So everything was natural and holistic. Family doula. No prenatal care or post natal. Just listening to their body and doing what feels right. Family together sharing knowledge and giving guidance. Lots of care postnatal from the women in the family. No EDD just when baby was ready. No still borns in either side of the family, no C sections or inductions no bad tears etc etc etc no complications.
Mum is 1 of 7 and Dad is 1 of 13. Everyone still alive and well. Same for the cousins on each side. Large families 7 - 15 kids per family everyone alive and well.
Great grandparents lived well into their 100's. Grand uncles and aunts still alive and doing well etc.