bunnyjadwiga

The first recorded case of a C-Section operation survived by the mother appears to have been in Germany in 1500, performed by the desperate father-- Jacob Nufer, a pig gelder.

Rectovaginal fistulas (which is one of the complications that episiotomies were developed to combat) were common and long-term complications of birth in the 19th century. Between 1845 and 1850, James Marion Sims came up with a speculum that allowed repairs to be made and perfected a method by operating on a number of African-American slave women who had such fistulas. He later made his fortune performing the surgery on upper-class women who also demanded the now-fashionable anesthesia for the operation.

The 16th century Rosegarden for Pregnant Women and Midwives recommends that overweight women deliver in a hands and knees position that is widely mentioned in the current delivery/midwifery literature as a method for reducing shoulder dystochia (where the child is trapped in the birth canal because the posterior shoulder cannot be delivered). This manuever, however, is not easily executed in a modern standard delivery room due to the presence of monitoring equipment.

Public record of the labor and delivery of a Iberian woman, 1490:
http://www.the-orb.net/birthrecord.html

Parkinson, in the 1629 Paradisi in Sole, weighs in on the question of whether cabbage increases or decreases lactation:

It is thought, that the use of [Cabbages and Coleworts] doth hinder the milke in Nurses breasts, causing it to dry up quickly: but many women that have given sucke to my knowledge have denyed that assertion, affirming that they ahve often eaten them, and found no such effect. How it might prove in more delicate bodies than theirs that thus said, I cannot tell: but Matthiolus auetreth to increase milke in Nurses breastes; so differing are the opinions of many.

-- p. 504

I didn't see anything in Parkinson about the claim that cabbage leaves make a good poultice for breast engorgement, though the web gives the following citations:

Nikodem, V.C., Danziger, D., Gebka, N., Gulmezoglu, A.M., and Hofmeyr, G.J. (1993). Do cabbage leaves prevent breast engorgement? A randomized, controlled study. Birth: Issues in Perinatal Care and Education 20(2), pp. 61-64.

Roberts, K.L. (1995). A comparison of chilled cabbage leaves and chilled gelpaks in reducing breast engorgement. Journal of Human Lactation 11(1), pp. 17-20.

Roberts, K.L., Reiter, M., and Schuster, D. (1995). A comparison of chilled and room temperature cabbage leaves in treating breast engorgement. Journal of Human Lactation 11(3), pp. 191-194.

What do you think, should I ILL these articles?

A couple of suggestions from the Rose Garden for Pregnant Women and Midwives, 1513, for increasing a woman's milk:

"seeds from pastinaca; parsnip in English"
"broth of barley, chickpeas, graypeas, and in that same broth . . . boil fennel root or seeds"
"eat sheeps udder with the milk that is in it"
"barley water with a dram of dried powdered earthworms"
"two lots of [dairy butter] stirred in wine"
"good meat, good broth made with cinnamon stick, mace, cardamom, and with egg yolks"
"milk and new cheese"
"good pap made with bean flour, rice and dry white bread with milk and sugar, and it would be good [to add] a little fennel seed"
"Three lots of well pounded roman caraway and boil it in four pounds of water with six lots of purified honey in a new pot until it is reduced by one-third; she should drink this water often."
"Take two lots of well-washed cabbage and one lot roman caraway, twelve lots of honey; pound the cabbage and caraway well, and make an electuary with the honey; the woman should take a spoonful of thise electuary when she goes to sleep, and also in the morning on an empty stomach."

There's more, but:
"Also these things increase the milk: dill weed and its seeds, aniseed, horehound, cardamom, new cheese and old whey, chickpeas, crystal powdered and given with honey, lettuce made into a salad, fennel seeds, wine in which rosemary has been boiled, or wild pennyroyal that is wild thyme, or houseleek".

Now, let me point out that neither crystal, pennyroyal, wild thyme or houseleek are Generally Regarded As Safe for nursing mothers, in fact houseleek is considered poisonous.

It seems to me that a lot of these recipes are sympathetic magic, such as the sheep's udder; others are good nutrition, such as bean flour. Lettuce and cabbage are continually suggested as folk remedies for paucity of milk up to the present day, as is fennel. The other carminative (anti-gas, anti-colic) herb seeds such as caraway, dill and anise may have crept in by association, or may have been deliberately added.

Hm... If I made the electuary, which should be mostly harmless, maybe

galinalady would test if for me? *GRIN*

Some notes from the 1513 midwife's manual:
In childbirth, a woodcut

Birthing Chair: Woodcut from Der Swangern Frawen und he bammen roszgarten, by Eucharius Rösslin, 1513.
Apparently a birthing chair was sometimes used, as well as a half-lying position and apparently a hands-and-knees position:

...She should lie down on her back, but she should not lie down completely and yet also she also should not quite be standing, but rather it should be somewhere in the middle . . . And in high German lands, and also in Italian lands the midwives have special chairs for a woman's labor, and these are not high, but carved out and hollow on the inside, as depicted here. And these should be made so the woman can lean back on her back . . . And if she is fat, she should not sit, rather she should lie on her belly, and lay her forehead on the ground and pull her knees to her belly . . .

Rösslin, Eucharius. When Midwifery became the Male Physician's Province: the sixteenth century handbook The Rose Garden for Pregnant Women and Midwives [Der Swangern Frawen und he bammen roszgarten] newly Englished. Translated by Wendy Arons. (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1994)

NB: Bizarrely, the wife of one of my acquaintances was only able to give birth via natural childbirth when she assumed this position; and she's one of the skinniest women I know!

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
		1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30	31

Entries tagged with midwifery

Notes on period obstetrics

Found by Anastasia...

The Cabbage Controversy.

mother's milk

16th c. midwifery as described by a physician

Profile

August 2017

Syndicate

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags