Call the midwife part 2

[TwinklyFawn]

I know that my first thread isn't full yet. I just wanted to create the second thread before i forgot.

My school was like that. You could only buy the material at the department store in town and the expectation was that your mum made you the dress. My mum lead the rebellion to have us in shop bought gingham dresses.

Checking in.... ♥️

New here but checking in and agree that's this is one of the better series. Have never missed an episode.

DM was kept in for a fortnight after a CS in the mid 70s, only a couple of days for a standard birth, albeit premature, in the early 70s, even though the baby was kept in for 7 weeks.

Thanks for the new🧵

We also had homemade school dresses and have knitted cardies, mid 70s.

Mine too. She said they were shown how to bathe the babies etc.

I was born in 1969 and my mum was in hospital for 10 days. Dad sat outside the delivery room but came in once she was cleaned up and tidy! I think by the time my youngest sister came along 6 years later mum was home the next day.

My first baby was 1990...5 day stay for first babies, 3 days for subsequent, 10 days for after a section.
I had a domino for my 2nd baby!

My nephew was born in a small local hospital in 1980. All deliveries were induced on Tuesdays...anyone with potential complications sent elsewhere. Discharged on Monday ready for the next batch! My mum was horrified.

My mother was not only kept in for a good week after my brother was born, but was in for some time beforehand with high blood pressure. I was only two but still have clear memories of the succession of elderly relatives brought in to help look after me. That was late 70s.

I like to think Carry On, Matron is an accurate portrayal of maternity care in the late 60s. Women basically randomly there before the birth and then settled down for a nice long stay afterwards with lessons on baby care, and a nursery for the babies to go to most of the time.

When my nephew was born the babies were in a nursery along a corridor and down steps. I had a lot of stitches after my ds was born, I wouldn't have been able to visit a baby some distance away.
I can remember visiting sil and nephew and a nurse busted in with a bedpan, it was Carry on Matron. And possibly why I waited 10 years to have a baby!
It must have been OK, sil had several more babies but in bigger hospitals!

Busted should be bustled. She was Hattie Jaques, not Barbara Windsor!

I think in those days the midwives brought the baby to you!

Sil took me to see the baby, although probably three or four days on. I know when her next baby was born, about 1985, she had the baby beside her!
My cousin had a baby about 20 years ago... her late mum, my aunt, would have been 98 now . She was not convinced babies should be fed until they were 2 days old. I have never heard that anywhere else! I know baby care information changes...but that's really weird.

Latest episode watched this week by me. As ever I did like it. I do feel it has the tenor of a morality play, a Pilgrim's Progress, a North Korean political lecture at times - not least because I don't vote Labour so obviously as it is TV in 2025 it only from one standpoint. However that does not mean it isn't a good show.

The 46 year old miscarrying her last baby was sad but it did present the issues over abortion quite well. I don't think it ever really shows how so many people did feel who were against abortion in those days. They would have a genuine religious or general belief it is murder of a child but that is not really something the BBC would want to present to a 2025 audience.

There was a nursery at the hospital where i was born. Babies slept in the nursery for a few nights. Babies would sleep with their mothers the night before discharge.

🤮🤮

My DM had all her babies at home in the early 60s and my little sister in 69. She had pre eclampsia with me in 62. I also had pre eclampsia in 95 and was in from 32 weeks until induced at 38 weeks and then a further 4 days.
I have shed a a tear or 2 in this episode.

Checking in too. Thank you.

My mum was in for quite a while before I was induced because she was in danger. They asked my dad that if it came to it should they save her or the baby. I'm happy to say that he said "My wife of course!" You got that right, daddy. Then for my brother about three years later the birth happened at home. Both of us were born in the 60s. Also, when she was in waiting for me she got given a bottle of Guiness every day for the iron content.

ah that’s lovely 🥰

I had knitted school jumpers in the late 90s and I wasn’t the only one

We were four expectant mothers with pre-eclampsia and we shared a room in the early 80s. We went home on Friday evening and came back on Sunday evenings. This was from October to January. We had such a good time, sitting in the day room, watching terrible daytime television, bed rest in the afternoons until children's programmes came on. We went to a carol concert in December in the chapel and got back to find our pre-ordered meals had been given to new admissions and we were left with sandwiches. 40 years ago and it still rankles. We were all scheduled to be induced on the same Tuesday in January. Three of us managed to have ours before then. We were all home a couple of days later. My DH missed the birth because I was so quick, in the early hours and it was a half hour drive away.
The baby was taken to the nursery for the first night and you were only allowed home after you had bathed them. We were supposed to be down how to do it by one of the nurses. My nurse was very new and nervous so I showed her how to do it. I had been a nursery nurse and nanny so had done it quite a few times.

Without wanting to minimise the worry and seriousness of pre-eclampsia, this sounds amazing. I sometimes feel so tired and burnt out by modern life that I think a short hospital stay (for a non life threatening illness of course) would be a wonderful rest. But probably not in an NHS hospital in 2025!

I really don't think any of us actually realised how potentially serious pre-eclampsia was. Pre Internet and we had only books to tell us, and nursing staff and doctors who talked over us to the students, as it was a teaching hospital. My bump was examined by first day student midwives (staff nurse asked me first because she thought I was quite easy going). 8 of them, one at a time obviously, with varying degrees of warmth in their hands. My DS was born the following morning. I swear they helped him along! The hospital staff were wonderful with us all. It was just like a holiday.