General Chat

In the few weeks that I have been searching my family I have found several incidents of infant mortality either in birth or in a few years thereafter and also fever of the mother, resulting in death of the Mother. I feel strongly about this in that in a hundred years or so unless we record the facts, no one will know what the situation might still be. Just 40 years ago 1965 I delivered a child after four days, that ended in forceps delivery and there were no baby monitors. Not the vontous (sp) suction delivery that my daughter in law insisted was the case. No, FORCEPS. The result was that my son has a mark on the back of his neck, for life, not a birth mark, more a pressure mark; midwives might correct, but this is the way it was for me. I would always know my son for this mark. Nowadays Mums dont go as long as four days, and delivering a babe is much easier. Maybe those of you with young families might like to make a note. Unless we searchers share with conscience how will they know in future.

My little boy wouldnt come out for ages not four days though. they tried forceps for ages but the doctor couldnt pull him out. so ended up with a caesarean I was so upset and I felt cheated that I hadnt given birth naturaly. A few weeks later I went back to the hospital to ask why they couldnt pull him out, as it was haunting me. And a different doctor said as I had a woman doctor she might not have had enough strength to pull, yet there was my 15 stone boyfriend standing there, he would have been delighted to pull. Well what I am getting at is that my little one had a little mark on the top of his ear through the forceps and it is happy memory now whenever I see it.

In 1950 my mother-in-law had her first baby. She was 4"11" and the baby was lying across her body, so her obstetrician had put "possible caesarian" on her notes. However, when she went into labour, her obstetrician was on holiday. The replacement man believed in "letting nature take its course" and she was in labour for a long time before both she and the baby showed signs of distress - this incompetant bloke then tried to deliver the baby with forceps - it wasn't even head down! and she had to have an emergency caesarian. The baby lived for 2 minutes. My mother-in-law was supposed to be unconscious and when she came round they told her the baby had never breathed, but she swore she heard him cry. The surgeon came out of the operating theatre, covered in blood and told my father-in-law that the baby was dead and his wife had a 50% chance of survival - no "Let's sit down" and gentle breaking of the news, no cup of tea...Father-in-law walked out of the hospital in front of a bus which screeched to a halt just in time. When her obstetrician came back he had to operate on her again to repair the damage done by the first bloke. She was told she had to wait 5 years before having another baby. This was my husband! They decided a caesarian was the only option this time, but she reacted against the anaesthetic and stopped breathing - they also had to give her heart massage. Fortunately when she had her third and final baby in 1960 they gave her a local anaesthetic. My own family history is full of women who died of complications of childbirth or were worn out with childbearing and died before the age at which I had my first child!

hi janet..im making all the notes in my family even down to falls and scars.theres some stories on this thread now..my mum was in labour for five days with me as i was prem..i was delivered with forceps and the first weeks of my life i was covered in bruises and looked horrid apparently,myself for a youngster(was 19 first baby)i had pretty long labours 19hours,then 14hours and finally 25 hours with my third.i wouldnt have wanted to give birth in the old days thats for certain.x

Hi Both my daughters born in '78 and '80 were exactly a week overdue and no forceps used. I had the first in 5 hrs and second in 4 minutes! My granddaughter was 10 days late and no forceps used again. I thought these were only used when there were real complications and a baby had to be delivered quickly. Obviously if this procedure does cause the damage you have mentioned then it should be investigated.

Besides infant mortalities which were prevelent, the traveling around the country amazed me and how the hell did they survive and bring up so many children. Have you noticed how nearly everyone took in boarders??

On the converse side, my Norfolk branch of the family - my grandfather was one of 10 children (8 boys, 2 girls) who all lived in the same village until they left home to find work. The eldest child died aged 10 of meningitis, but the others all lived to adulthood, most of them reaching the average life span. Similarly, my other grandfather from Glos was one of 8 children. The eldest girl was knocked over by a runaway horse and cart and died, but all the others lived to a ripe old age. My London rellies were the ones with the worst health and highest number of dead babies - obviously the environment was more polluted and people living in more crowded conditions which enabled disease to thrive and spread. nell

Take a look at some of the Deaths images on FreeBMD - it's not unusual to see five successive deaths age "0 years". Note too how common it was for children to die aged a few years or in their teens.