by Diane Morris | Jun 25, 2015 | Childbirth
Any pregnant woman during the Regency period would have known what a man-midwife meant when he asked: Are you prepared to take a pain? To “take a pain” was a popular expression meaning to submit to an examination per vaginam (“via the vagina”). I found this gem in Dr....
by Diane Morris | May 21, 2015 | Childbirth
Strange as it seems to us, the word “gossip” had a friendly meaning during the Regency period and for many centuries before that: a “gossip” was a woman who attended her daughter’s or sister’s or friend’s delivery. In its original sense, the word was a...
by Diane Morris | Mar 12, 2015 | Childbirth
It was not the case that only midwives could be ignorant and incompetent. Some man-midwives were equally injurious when delivering children, despite being trained under doctors and man-midwives who taught classes and used obstetrical machines or phantoms. Mistaking...
by Diane Morris | Feb 19, 2015 | Childbirth
For most of human history midwives ruled the roost when it came to delivering children, as you may have read in my previous post on Regency midwives. Man-midwives or accoucheurs, as they were known in France, were called to a delivery only when there was a problem or...
by Diane Morris | Nov 6, 2014 | Childbirth, Medicine
During England’s Regency period, women in childbed were advised to sip a caudle—a warm drink made by mixing a thin gruel of oatmeal with wine or ale, spices, and sugar. Although often given to sick people, caudles were enjoyed by women in labor and during their...
