Call the midwife questions

[Soubriquet]

Watching call the midwife again

I do love that show

One thing I always wonder is, why do they do enemas?

When did they stop doing them?

Little Angela looks very sweet in the photo. I can't wait for it to re-start. It's a shame Chummy won't be back, I did like her.

I think they still shave if you have a c-section but only the top so they can see where they are cutting.

I was given an enema in 2004. It didn't hurt but it was rather undignified.

Yes, you still get shaved when having a c-section, it's so they can keep the hair out of the wound when they stitch you up. Having itchy stitches AND itchy regrowth is not fun!

Yes - much better now Soubriquet, especially in terms of mothers having a say in how things happen.

I remember asking if I could have a wedge or even some pillows when in labour and was told "no" as the midwives weren't trained to cope with anything other than the mother flat on her back. I wonder how they would have managed with someone on all fours or a water birth - probably run away or resigned.

Changed days, thank goodness.

And allowing men in the labour ward too.

DH was present with both of ours - 1982 and 1983. Might have been quite a new thing at that time.

I wish I could have had an enema. I was constipated throughout pregnancy and scared to poo during labour!

My dad was there when I was born in 1978.

They still insist on enemas in Finland - had one in 2011, still thought I poo'd during delivery.

DH was at the birth of all my children. The first was in 1972.
And I did hypnobirthing as did several of my friends. Sheila Kitzinger started it off but I used a book by Erna Wright called 'The New Childbirth'.
It was quite new though and not many midwives knew about it and found it quite strange and amazing.
I lived in Yorkshire and didn't know of any classes but maybe they had them in London.
Epidurals weren't available and I hated the thought of being drugged and not knowing that was happening. That scared me more than the pain.
I also had one of the first Maclaren buggies. Bought it in London before we moved (even then houses were expensive in London compared with wages,and we moved to be able to buy our first house, although nothing like as bad as now. We were living in Islington in the same road as Tony Blair lived later and the run down house we had a very small flat in was being sold for £8,000 which seemed extortionate to us).
It, the buggy not the house, was striped blue and white like a deckchair, you could also get them in red or green.
People used to stop me in the street and ask me what it was.