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Giving birth
http://www.the-cbb.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=7539
Author:  RubyGates [ Sat Mar 20, 2010 10:19 pm ]
Post subject:  Giving birth
I was just looking at an archived thread about the Mensch/Marani family tree and it set me thinking about whether EBD would have inflicted such large families on her characters if she'd experienced giving birth herself?
I had a bad birth with my first child, my son and it put me off having any more for years; that explains the fourteen year age gap between my son and my daughter. I know, generally speaking each birth is supposed to get easier but even so it puts a tremendous strain on your body.
Author:  Lyanne [ Sun Mar 21, 2010 12:11 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
I think it is easier in fiction to give characters 'ideal' families, whatever that ideal is! And we see the frequent and high birth rates in other GO fiction, I'm thinking specifically EJO.

But yes, I think that if an author had experienced something in a strongly negative way, that would probably not be the first thing they'd have a favoured character experience.
Author:  Fiona Mc [ Sun Mar 21, 2010 12:21 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
I think also its the era as well. People did genuinely have large families because of a lack of birth control. Birth control came in in the 60's and most of these families had more than finished their families at this time.

I think also most of these people lost their parents when they were young so their children would become their new family so to speak and babies are a joy (for most, bar the crying and sleepless nights :wink: ) after so much death.

This discussion came up at work the other week; about having more children after a difficult delivery. One person said she stopped at one for that reason and another said she kept going cos she did want more and if she had a huge gap between her first and second, then she would never of had the second; she kind of gritted her teeth and went on. She also said her second and third delivery was no where near as bad as her first
Author:  shesings [ Sun Mar 21, 2010 12:54 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
The contraceptive pill came in the 60s but condoms and diaphragms were available much earlier. Not quite as reliable as the pill, of course, but from the late 20s onward many people did have the option to limit the size of their families. The large families I recall from the 50s and 60s were almost always Catholic.

I do think if EBD had ever given birth, or had to deal with babies/toddlers she might not have been so keen to give her heroine(s) so many children.
Author:  MJKB [ Sun Mar 21, 2010 1:09 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
Lyanne wrote:
I think it is easier in fiction to give characters 'ideal' families, whatever that ideal is! And we see the frequent and high birth rates in other GO fiction, I'm thinking specifically EJO.


Interestingly, Enid Blyton's families were usually of the one boy and one girl variety. She, of course, had two children herself, but neither EJO or EBD had experienced child birth.
Author:  ammonite [ Sun Mar 21, 2010 11:21 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
People used to have a large family as well as many children died in infancy or childhood. However when these books were written EBD has an Edwardian view on large families but then has to deal with the growth of modern medicines meaning children survived. I expect if the books were written even a few years before at least one of Joey's children would have died probably Margot and Charles.

As it is how did Joey carry triplets to what looks like full term and without either herself or the triplets being in need of serious medical attention in a hospital?
Author:  Mel [ Sun Mar 21, 2010 11:33 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
The next generation have big families, but not the original ones: Maranis 2 Menches 3 Lecoutiers 2 Stevens 2.
Author:  Cosimo's Jackal [ Sun Mar 21, 2010 12:06 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
Mel wrote:
Maranis 2 Menches 3 Lecoutiers 2 Stevens 2.


Sounds like the football results!
:D
Author:  RoseCloke [ Sun Mar 21, 2010 12:28 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
ammonite wrote:
As it is how did Joey carry triplets to what looks like full term and without either herself or the triplets being in need of serious medical attention in a hospital?


Even as a child this puzzled me. My best friends were twins (I've never met triplets!) who had experienced problems in the womb, which had left physical marks on one of them, and my Mum told me from a young age about the problems she had with me (a singleton and first child, I decided to come out neck-first, my heart stopped part way through, I wouldn't do it naturally and I was too far down for a caesarean - the doctors literally had to cut me out from what she termed as 'down there' :shock: I don't think I'll ever repay my poor mother for the trauma!). Recently watching the Channel Four documentary series set on a maternity ward also reinforces the sense of surrealism around CS births.

If as a child, and later an adult without children, I can see the surrealism I wonder that EBD could not paint even a slightly more complicated view of childbirth. There seems to be lots of 'resting' beforehand, but it's all very out of the way. Is this because it used to be a great 'mystery' to non-mothers/non-medical professionals? We had formal education about the biology aspects - although not the pain! - from age nine, which I imagine would not have happened even by word-of-mouth then.

Was she shielding her readers? My father didn't find out until he was an adult (and, this is totally bizarre, from a psychic who approached him at a party and asked about his sister - he's an only child - so he went home and asked his parents) that my Grandma had been pregnant, rushed to hospital late-ish in the pregnancy and lost the baby, who nowadays would probably have survived in a neonatal unit. He said he was only aware that his Mum was 'away' for a day or so and then she came back a resumed normal duties. It was postwar, so he was about nine or ten (born 1935, so CS-era). He seemed to think that, although hurtful as an adult, this was normal practise for dealing about babies/pregnancy with children.

About Joey's specific situation: my current essay is about Conservative tendencies in women and I'm reading a lot of sources about scarcity - just come across one reference to a minister advising women to 'book their maternity beds' (in the days before the NHS; this was at the beginning of the war) as soon as they were married, never mind when they fell pregnant! :shock:
Author:  shesings [ Sun Mar 21, 2010 12:45 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
When I was a child in the 40s and 50s the word 'pregnant' was never used and all reference to a forthcoming happy event e.g. "Maisie's expecting, July month" was made by mime and lip reading when there were children about! It wasn't unusual for second and subsequent children to be born at home at that time but in a middle class family a first and certainly a multiple would have been in hospital or nursing home.

As for family sizes, there was great concern in France during the 20s and 30s because the birth rate dropped dramatically. Partly, of course, that was due to the number of men killed in WW1 but even within marriages the average family size dipped at one point to something like 1.6 per family (always want to know what 0.6 of a child looks like!). Commentators put it down to the use of the douche and the reluctance of women to bear sons to be slaughtered in the next war.
Author:  julieanne1811 [ Sun Mar 21, 2010 3:23 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
ammonite wrote:
As it is how did Joey carry triplets to what looks like full term and without either herself or the triplets being in need of serious medical attention in a hospital?


Or ... without anyone knowing that a multiple pregnancy in progress? Without scans they would have relied on palpation and that alone (should) would have identified more than one baby. It should have indentified the triplets and appropriate plans made, but even if we let them off that, surely the midwife would have noticed that there was more than one baby in the uterus???

What form of ante-natal care was there? In the 60s when my mother was expecting my middle and then youngest sister the midwife would visit my mother at home and listen to the fetal heart (which I was allowed to hear too - great fun for a 3 year old!). My mother had pre-eclampsia so had to rest, which was possibly why the visits took place at home rather than at the ante-natal clinic.

But what kind of ANC would Joey and Co. have had? Anyone know?
Author:  Cosimo's Jackal [ Sun Mar 21, 2010 3:34 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
julieanne1811 wrote:
But what kind of ANC would Joey and Co. have had? Anyone know?


The whole pregnancy thing is so thoroughly wrapped in euphemism and mystery that I personally can't imagine anything other than Peter Chester or someone sitting behind his desk and saying gravely, 'Joey, you're going to be busy. Very, very busy, if you see what I mean. Or possibly three 'verys' - I can't be sure.' :)
Author:  MJKB [ Sun Mar 21, 2010 3:40 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
julieanne1811 wrote:
Or ... without anyone knowing that a multiple pregnancy in progress? Without scans they would have relied on palpation and that alone (should) would have identified more than one baby. It should have indentified the triplets and appropriate plans made, but even if we let them off that, surely the midwife would have noticed that there was more than one baby in the uterus???

Exactly! Mind you, a friend of mine who married straight after uni, got pregnant almost immediately. She hadn't intended having children for a while and was not at all maternalistic. She had her son and that was it, it was belts and braces. But, man proposes and God disposes, about three months after her son's birth she was pregnant again. To say she was furious is to understate the case by a mile. I will never forget her pregnancy. At six months she looked as if she was expecting triplet elephants. She was so heavy she couldn't sleep in any position and had to be prescribed sleeping tablets.
The time came for the birth and a son was born, exhausted, she thought she was about to be taken back to her room when, lo and behold, she was told there was another on the way. She physically attempted (I won't go into detail!) to stop the second birth, and was absolutely devestated when her daughter was delivered. The combinded weight of the twins was nearly over eighteen lbs. Her obstetrician had decided to not to tell her that she was pregnant with twins for fear of what she might do. This happened in 1979!
Author:  violawood [ Sun Mar 21, 2010 5:05 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
julieanne1811 wrote:
But what kind of ANC would Joey and Co. have had? Anyone know?


Well, there were all those doctors about so they were very lucky. Seriously, pre-NHS, I think it really depended on how well-off you were.

I've just been reading the Call The Midwife trilogy by Jennifer Worth and it's been fascinating reading. She went for midwifery training in the East End in the early fifties, so just after the establishment of the NHS and relates all kinds of stories - some very sad and some lovely happy ones. The books are quite episodic and she mixes her own experiences with some short essays on the history of medicine. I did find her writing-style a bit clunky but, overall, they're very interesting books.

She was training at a small convent in Poplar which eventually closed in the late '70s after 99 years of dedicated service to the area. The sisters did organise an ante-natal clinic and JW says it was the only one locally until 1948 - I can't find a date for when it started. And the book does include the delivery of a set of triplets :D
Author:  claire [ Sun Mar 21, 2010 6:35 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
In Jennifer Worth's newest one (Farewell to the Eastend) it has a triplet homebirth where all three are fine (midwife nearly has a heartattack though)

The hospital I used to work in had a woman (Somalian I believe) who came in in labour, pushing and had vaginal triplets without a problem.

I've also looked after someone who had triplets (by elective section so no labour) at 36 weeks - all 3 babies were over 5lb and did fine - she walked in that morning at 8am just like anyone else with a booked section with one baby (but huge belly)

I always just assumed they knew it was a multiple pregnancy (maybe not telling Jo) but not the number - palpating triplets is hard - just all arms and legs everywhere - I couldn't have sworn that someone was having 3 babies and not 2 or 4.

The Dionne Quints were born around that time, at home and survived.
Author:  Llywela [ Sun Mar 21, 2010 6:49 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
julieanne1811 wrote:
ammonite wrote:
As it is how did Joey carry triplets to what looks like full term and without either herself or the triplets being in need of serious medical attention in a hospital?

Or ... without anyone knowing that a multiple pregnancy in progress? Without scans they would have relied on palpation and that alone (should) would have identified more than one baby. It should have indentified the triplets and appropriate plans made, but even if we let them off that, surely the midwife would have noticed that there was more than one baby in the uterus???

My mother has often told the story of how the mother of one of her classmates had triplets in the 1950s, and no one knew there were three babies until they were born, although I think she'd been told to expect twins. The father, of course, didn't attend the birth in those days - the poor chap had to go to work as normal, and nipped out in his break to find a pay phone, call the hospital and find out what was going on. So he was told over the phone that his wife had had triplets - and passed out on the spot! A passer by found him on the ground and revived him.

So...I can believe that when Jo gave birth in the late 30s, no one realised she was having triplets until they were born.
Author:  julieanne1811 [ Sun Mar 21, 2010 7:43 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
But I still think they'd know there was more than one. Or they should have known ...
Author:  Alison H [ Sun Mar 21, 2010 7:58 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
My dad and my auntie, who are twins, were born in 1945 with a combined weight of 13lbs. My grandma had no idea she was having twins until they arrived. They were her first children so she didn't realise that she was bigger than normal. & maybe because there was a war on and a lot of pressure on medical services expectant mothers weren't monitored all that closely?

Like Jack when the triplets arrived, my grandfather was away because of the War, and he got a right shock when he heard that he'd got two babies rather than one!
Author:  Lesley [ Sun Mar 21, 2010 8:06 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
Babies do tend to survive anyway - or at least some of them do! My Grandmother was born in 1907, she weighed two pounds and spent the first few months of her life sleeping in a drawer wrapped in cotton wool and foil. Didn't even go to hospital.
Author:  shesings [ Sun Mar 21, 2010 8:46 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
Then there are women who give birth when they haven't even realised they are pregnant. We had a case locally of a woman whose GP was treating her for chronic indigestion and she was at the hospital about to be prepped for an endoscopy when she went into labour and gave birth to a healthy 6 pound baby girl. It was a real surprise for her man when he arrived to take her home!

Edited to delete - extraneous word!
Author:  Cel [ Sun Mar 21, 2010 8:58 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
Do we know for sure that Joey didn't know she was going to have a multiple birth? I don't have the book to hand and I may have forgotten something, but isn't it possible that she and Peter Chester were expecting twins at least, but just didn't tell anyone else? Pregnancy was so little discussed in those days, and with the higher infant mortality, it may have been thought best not to broadcast it before they'd all arrived safely.
Author:  Alison H [ Sun Mar 21, 2010 9:22 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
Madge asks Peter Chester if Jo's had a boy or a girl, which suggests she didn't know that Jo was expecting more than one, but Jo could have known and not told her. I'd think that if Peter realised that three babies were on the way at once then he'd've recommended that Jo go into a hospital or nursing home for the birth, but I find it rather odd anyway that delicate Jo apparently gave birth to three babies with absolutely no trouble and was so cheerful straight afterwards!
Author:  Rob [ Sun Mar 21, 2010 9:24 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
Obviously we don't get to see the scene where Jo actually gives birth to the triplets, but have just been a brief flick through at what we are told:

Madge does seem worried about Jo, but that seems to be more about whether her health would be up to going through pregnancy and childbirth as Peter Chester tells her the "time for worry is over". She certainly doesn't seem to know that Jo is expecting even more than one child as she asks "which is it?" not "what are they?" or "was it twins?"

Similarly Jem and Hilda both have to be convinced that it isn't a joke, when told. Whilst pregnancy might not have been discussed at the time you would think Jem, as a doctor - even if not the doctor in attendance - would have realised that Jo was 'bigger' than would have been expected for one child, if anyone was likely to? In fact Peter Chester says that this is the first time he has met with triplets in his career, so perhaps he wouldn't have known?

Having said that, the triplets are baptised when the are seven days (I think) old and Jo and Jack have managed to come up with names (and Godparents) for three girls, despite Jack being away in France and his initial letter calling them Martha, Eliza and Maria. So either Jo picked without consulting Jack, more letters than are mentioned are exchanged or they had an idea that there was more than one child expected!

ETA: Alison - you beat me to it!
Author:  Nightwing [ Sun Mar 21, 2010 9:28 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
Rob wrote:
...and his initial letter calling them Martha, Eliza and Maria.


OT, but in the book this is treated as an obvious joke/lie - can someone explain to me what it is about those names which is meant to be funny? Because I just don't understand!
Author:  emma t [ Sun Mar 21, 2010 10:43 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
It's easy as an author to do this to a character; even if you have never experienced it for yourself - I know from experience, writing with a friend, a seriel of stories, we gave one person a large family :mrgreen:

It was the norm at the time to have large families - my mum is one of 9 and she was born in 1951 - all are still alive :P

Did not Joey wear a shawl to cover up her pregnancys? It does make me wonder how big she actually got when having triplets - and what size clothing she went back into after the births of all her children? My cousin has five, and from what I have been told she has gone back to a size 10 jean - I was shocked!!
Author:  SMG [ Sun Mar 21, 2010 11:40 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
Perhaps we are all so used to early scans etc these days.

My mother -in -law was born in 1940 and family lore holds that it came as a complete surprise to everyone when twins(a boy and a girl) arrived.It was a 5th pregancy(and the family was unfashionably large for their part of Sunderland at the time) so perhaps it wasn't picked up.

A more harrowing read than the Jennifer Worth trilogy is 'The Cruel Mother' by Sian Busby.It is mostly about her great grandmother who had triplets in 1919 (I think).. and drowned the 2 surviving ones a few weeks later.(post natal depression in the pre Welfare State..and not unsurprisingly,family secrets and their knock on effect in any era)

What comes out is that the triplets were also a complete surprise,it wasn't a welcomed pregnancy (she already had 3 older boys and making ends meet wasn't so easy) awful birth and one baby was born dead.

Just as well that Joey did have such a good support system(of course -this is GO territory)!
Author:  MJKB [ Mon Mar 22, 2010 12:27 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
SMG wrote:
Just as well that Joey did have such a good support system(of course -this is GO territory)!


With relatively easy labours and births, and a real love of having babies, Joey's support systems with adoring friends, relations and the faithful Ann and co, would have made her lot considerably easier to manage than most.
Author:  Alison H [ Mon Mar 22, 2010 1:07 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
Nightwing wrote:
Rob wrote:
...and his initial letter calling them Martha, Eliza and Maria.


OT, but in the book this is treated as an obvious joke/lie - can someone explain to me what it is about those names which is meant to be funny? Because I just don't understand!


I assume it was just that they were old-fashioned by late 1930s standards. Martha was, Eliza (as opposed to Lizzie, Betty, Beth or Bess) was, and Maria would've been if pronounced Mar-eye-ah as in Mariah Carey, the old English way (Rosamund remarks somewhere about preferring Maria Marani's pronunciation Mar-ee-a, which in the days before West Side Story and The Sound of Music would've sounded quite unusual to someone English-speaking).

I don't see that any of them are all that funny, though! Plenty of people at the CS have names which weren't fashionable at the time, and both EBD and Joey seem to think that giving someone a trendy name's a bad thing because it'll make it easy for people to guess their age when they're older.
Author:  Kathy_S [ Mon Mar 22, 2010 2:25 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
My mother had no idea that she was expecting twins in the late fifties. One day, she had just broken the news that we'd be having a new sister or brother in about six weeks. The next day, she was off at the hospital.

I still have a hard time imagining Maria not pronounced Ma-REE-a. I think in our neck of the woods, where that was the standard pronunciation before 'Sound of Music' or 'West Side Story,' repeated singing of 'Ave, Ave, Ave Ma-REE-ah' might have been involved. Or maybe American English was just affected earlier by the large proportion of Germanic, Italian, & Hispanic Marias. WASPs tended to stick with plain old Mary.
Author:  Fiona Mc [ Mon Mar 22, 2010 9:30 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
I think Joey not knowing she was having triplets would be pretty normal. Our next door neighbhour didn't until a week before when she was told she may be. They couldn't see the third on the scan for some reason. And Joey would have had a good chance of carrying them to term. IVF multiple births are more likely to be premature but naturally conceived births are easier to carry longer. A midwife I used to work with knew someone who had triplets at 35 weeks and 37-40 weeks is considered term. She also told me that babies born two months early will often do well and survive better than babies born 1 month early. Nowadays two months early isn't too bad at all.
The other thing too, I don't think Joey had an easy delivery with there being half an hour between Len and Con. There's only ten minutes between twins in our family
Author:  Mel [ Mon Mar 22, 2010 11:48 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
Did EBD know much about childbirth? I doubt it, I think she just thought it would be fun to give Joey triplets so that once more (and forever more!) she would be famous/envied/different etc. I'm sure she would be aware of dangers in any birth, but in book for children she would not think it necessary to go into details.
Author:  Alison H [ Mon Mar 22, 2010 12:03 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
I get the impression that Madge had a bad time when David was born - Jack seems really stressed out when he comes to collect Jo, and Jo tells the others later on that Madge is
Quote:
quite all right now
which suggests that she wasn't at first. & several characters' mothers died in childbirth.

It all seems easy for Joey, though. The only time she has any problems is when she's not well in the last few weeks before Geoff and Phil are born, and that's just a plot device to get her out of the way so that Mary-Lou can deal with the Margot/Ted thing on her own.
Author:  julieanne1811 [ Mon Mar 22, 2010 3:55 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
Fiona Mc wrote:
And Joey would have had a good chance of carrying them to term.


Hadn't thought about that - but would she? Unless, because of a poor war-time diet, she was subsequently undernourished, and therefore her unborn babies were extremely small, the likelihood is that she would have been large-for-dates and would have given birth earlier than expected. But of course, this didn't happen (as far as we know), so why did no-one comment on her size?
Author:  shesings [ Mon Mar 22, 2010 5:27 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
The triplets were born in November 1939 so most of Jo's pregnancy was in peacetime and I don't think the daily diet in the first couple of months of the war changed that much.

Rationing became much stricter in 1940 and beyond but it was noted that actually the general health of the nation improved! This was mainly attributed to more fresh vegetables,very little sugar and added vitamins in bread, and margarine Expectant mothers were entitled to extra rations - I think at one time they were entitled to an entire egg a week instead of just a half - how did a family of odd number manage, I wonder? (Btw, I am sure I owe my good teeth to National Dried Milk and the persistence of sweet rationing into the early 1950s!)
Author:  judithR [ Mon Mar 22, 2010 5:33 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
shesings wrote:
Expectant mothers were entitled to extra rations


I think this gave rise to another euphemism for pregnancy - having a green (?) ration book! They also had extra milk tokens. families with young children received milk tokens (actual tokens like tiddlywinks) certainly into the 50s & maybe later. I think free milk may also have been available for pre-school cildren but my memeory is hazy on this point.
Author:  Loryat [ Mon Mar 22, 2010 5:36 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
Cel wrote:
Do we know for sure that Joey didn't know she was going to have a multiple birth? I don't have the book to hand and I may have forgotten something, but isn't it possible that she and Peter Chester were expecting twins at least, but just didn't tell anyone else? Pregnancy was so little discussed in those days, and with the higher infant mortality, it may have been thought best not to broadcast it before they'd all arrived safely.

I think this makes sense.

Big families (especially in Catholic families) were a lot more common in those days. My dad is one of seven and I'm one of five. Old people used to reminisce (sp???) to my mum at the bus stop about how you don't see big families nowadays and they were one of fourteen (or another large number). Plus, a large family is a great plot device. Gives you loads of new characters!

I love all the name jokes when the triplets are first born, and the telegram Jem sends to Dick (IIRC I was a bit disappointed with the actual names). I think Jo and Jack as a young couple in wartime are very sweet.

Was free milk not available to pre-schoolers/early years school children until Thatcher the milk snatcher got going? Jack and Jem would not have approved! :D
Author:  judithR [ Mon Mar 22, 2010 5:45 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
Loryat wrote:
Was free milk not available to pre-schoolers/early years school children until Thatcher the milk snatcher got going? Jack and Jem would not have approved


All schoolchildren acytually. We used to use the 1/3 pt milkbottles for growing Drosophila (??) when I was in the sixth form

I remember reading a paper in the BMJ which said that the incidence of milk intolerance had decreased after milk was withdrawn.

Mother, the primary school teacher, said that the children who could have done with the milk were usually the refusers (this was Cumbria in the 1950s/60s with a Nordic population & very low level of any dairy intolerence)
Author:  JS [ Mon Mar 22, 2010 7:37 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
Shesings wrote:
Quote:
When I was a child in the 40s and 50s the word 'pregnant' was never used and all reference to a forthcoming happy event e.g. "Maisie's expecting, July month" was made by mime and lip reading when there were children about!


I'm now picturing Les Dawson :lol: .

I was born in 1966 and they thought I might be twins - I wasn't - so presumably it was even less an exact science in 1940. I have met one set of triplets - IVF, so two identical (one egg had split) and one other. She knew through detailed scans very early in pregnancy.
Author:  julieanne1811 [ Mon Mar 22, 2010 10:36 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
shesings wrote:
The triplets were born in November 1939 so most of Jo's pregnancy was in peacetime and I don't think the daily diet in the first couple of months of the war changed that much.

Rationing became much stricter in 1940 and beyond but it was noted that actually the general health of the nation improved! This was mainly attributed to more fresh vegetables,very little sugar and added vitamins in bread, and margarine Expectant mothers were entitled to extra rations - I think at one time they were entitled to an entire egg a week instead of just a half - how did a family of odd number manage, I wonder? (Btw, I am sure I owe my good teeth to National Dried Milk and the persistence of sweet rationing into the early 1950s!)


Yes, of course. That makes sense ...
Author:  ammonite [ Mon Mar 22, 2010 11:18 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
I've solved my query.

In Theodora Joey tells Rosalie:
Quote:
I wish I’d been able to have her over here, but as things are, it just isn’t possible. July isn’t very far off and you never know! My triplets were early birds and so was Charles and the twins. They were expected to be late October babies and they came along the first week in September. Don’t be surprised if we have a second birthday to celebrate in June hereafter.”


No wonder people were surprised with the twins if they came 8 weeks early! Or did Joey just not count the weeks correctly? As it was they must have needed reasonable ante-natal care. It could explain why Charles was the other child that was frailer than the rest.
Author:  janetbrown23 [ Tue Mar 23, 2010 12:01 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
Dates were not so accurate in the pre scan days. They counted from the date of your last period and that was that. My Steve born in 1970 was due according to the doctors on 25 March, I thought he was more like mid April so didn't worry too much when he did not arrive on time. He actually turned up on 29 May in the end, he was perfectly OK , fairly large at 8lb 9oz but not enormously so and definitely not 2 months overdue.
Author:  MJKB [ Tue Mar 23, 2010 12:10 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
Loryat wrote:
Big families (especially in Catholic families) were a lot more common in those days. My dad is one of seven and I'm one of five. Old people used to reminisce (sp???) to my mum at the bus stop about how you don't see big families nowadays and they were one of fourteen (or another large number). Plus, a large family is a great plot device. Gives you loads of new characters!

Weren't women amazing then? I just can't imagine that number of pregnancies, never mind the years of child rearing without, in most cases, the support and help that Joey had.
Author:  JB [ Tue Mar 23, 2010 9:10 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
ammonite wrote:
No wonder people were surprised with the twins if they came 8 weeks early! Or did Joey just not count the weeks correctly?


Maths was never her best subject. :lol: :lol:
Author:  Cosimo's Jackal [ Tue Mar 23, 2010 9:24 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
JB wrote:
ammonite wrote:
No wonder people were surprised with the twins if they came 8 weeks early! Or did Joey just not count the weeks correctly?


Maths was never her best subject. :lol: :lol:


Which makes one wonder all the more if she and Jack were employing natural family planning methods, just not very accurately! Hence the long family due to dodgy maths. Or perhaps Joey's mercurial nature extended to her menstrual cycle - which I have a lot of sympathy with, as mine is less a cycle than a cyclone... :)
Author:  Alison H [ Tue Mar 23, 2010 10:12 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
Madge had both Sybil and Ailie earlier than expected. Maybe the whole family had problems with their maths!
Author:  sealpuppy [ Tue Mar 23, 2010 11:51 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
shesings wrote:
(Btw, I am sure I owe my good teeth to National Dried Milk and the persistence of sweet rationing into the early 1950s!)


Sadly it didn't work that way for me, Shesings; I think you must have been lucky or inherited good teeth!

I think Madge's own clearly traumatic childbirth experiences would have made her very anxious about Joey, as well as the 'sister mother' relationship. As for Joey not 'showing', I was tall and very slim and hardly any of the neighbours realised I was pregnant with an 8lb 5oz baby till just a few weeks before he arrived; and with the third I put on 10lb from first weigh-in till the day she was born, 7lb 5oz of which was baby. (Each time I was told there was very little 'water', which would explain the lack of huge bump).
Joey was very tall for those days, 5'9"? and could have tucked away three 4lb babies without much of a bump till the last couple of months, couldn't she?
Author:  Cosimo's Jackal [ Tue Mar 23, 2010 12:31 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
sealpuppy wrote:
Joey was very tall for those days, 5'9"? and could have tucked away three 4lb babies without much of a bump till the last couple of months, couldn't she?


Maybe that's why quite a few Maynard and Russell babies seem to arrive quite early, so that Joey/Daisy/Robin or whoever could plausibly not notice a potentially large, late-term bump? I can't imagine that many situations where someone with functioning eyesight could overlook that 'hello, I'm a baby' bulge that happens towards the end when the head engages...?
Author:  sealpuppy [ Tue Mar 23, 2010 1:01 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
Cosimo's Jackal wrote:
I can't imagine that many situations where someone with functioning eyesight could overlook that 'hello, I'm a baby' bulge that happens towards the end when the head engages...?


:D You'd also expect Daisy or Robin to be confiding their anxieties as to why Joey had suddenly started to waddle like a duck ! (When Joy in the Abbey Girls (can't remember which book) is about 8 months pregnant, Maidlin has no idea what's going on and is surprised that Joy doesn't want to play tennis. Presumably she didn't like to mention her guardian's weight gain?)

I wonder if Joey's difficulties before the last twins arrived could be to do with that mysterious 'misplaced organ'?
Author:  Llywela [ Tue Mar 23, 2010 2:19 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
sealpuppy wrote:
I wonder if Joey's difficulties before the last twins arrived could be to do with that mysterious 'misplaced organ'?

What I find most striking about all that business is that Jo has the operation to fix the mysterious 'misplaced organ' in late October/November (missing the triplets' birthday in early Nov)...and then the twins are born the following June. Now, they might have arrived earlier than expected, of course, but either way she was either already pregnant when she had the surgery, or became pregnant immediately after having surgery! Neither of which really sounds ideal.
Author:  Loryat [ Tue Mar 23, 2010 2:57 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
Early births seem to be a thing with EBD. Isn't Sybil a month early?
Author:  julieanne1811 [ Tue Mar 23, 2010 4:28 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
sealpuppy wrote:
:D You'd also expect Daisy or Robin to be confiding their anxieties as to why Joey had suddenly started to waddle like a duck !


When I did my midwifery traing we were told that the 'waddle' seen in pregnancy was due to the hormones relaxing the pelvic ligaments, plus the mechanics of carrying a heavy weight in front. Most pregnant women in this country do seem to adopt this posture, and I can understand why.

However, in India I never saw this. The camp women, of necessity, had very physically-active lives (trying to thresh rice over a bed-frame in that heat is unbelievable exhausting (I tried!) and yet they laughed at me and showed me how it was done with hardly breaking a sweat), and I nearly missed a heavily pregnant lady who was running up the mud steps of her house. Her posture was that of an un-prenant woman. It seemed to be the same with all of them, and I have wondered since if some of the 'waddle' is socially induced? Or is it that in our society we have proportionally less muscle tone?
Author:  abbeybufo [ Tue Mar 23, 2010 5:03 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
To somewhat similar effect, it used to be said in the 1960s/70s that girls with illegitimate babies had far better posture and less likelihood of backache, as they were trying to hide the fact they were pregnant, whereas the married ones showed it as much as they could - 'what a clever girl I am' - and had more back trouble etc. I don't know how true this actually is, but it was certainly an 'urban myth' around 1970 ...
Author:  judithR [ Tue Mar 23, 2010 6:28 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
Llywela wrote:
What I find most striking about all that business is that Jo has the operation to fix the mysterious 'misplaced organ' in late October/November (missing the triplets' birthday in early Nov)...and then the twins are born the following June. Now, they might have arrived earlier than expected, of course, but either way she was either already pregnant when she had the surgery, or became pregnant immediately after having surgery! Neither of which really sounds ideal


I remember mentioning this on an earlier thread. Perhaps we assume that they were very early & the result of the second honeymoon (?) immediately after surgery.
Author:  abbeybufo [ Tue Mar 23, 2010 6:32 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
Unless it was an early experiment in IVF, and the 'misplaced organ' was a red herring/smokescreen [if you'll pardon the mixed metaphor :roll: ]
Author:  judithR [ Tue Mar 23, 2010 6:37 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
abbeybufo wrote:
Unless it was an early experiment in IVF, and the 'misplaced organ' was a red herring/smokescreen [if you'll pardon the mixed metaphor :roll: ]


Wonderful thought especially as all her multiple births were fraternals (though I have the impression that genetics wasn't EDB's strongest subject)
Author:  sealpuppy [ Thu Mar 25, 2010 12:02 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
Just found an interesting snippet about birth in 1930. Somebody gave me the biography of the Queen Mum (which is a lot more interesting than you might expect!) Her second child, Princess Margaret, was born after a 6 hour labour and was much easier than Princess Elizabeth's, which required a caesarian. Anyway, the baby was born 15th August; the QM is referred to as being still weak and keeping mostly to her room till the end of September. Christening was end October and resuming 'public life' in November.

Very different from today.
Author:  linda [ Thu Mar 25, 2010 10:27 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
ammonite wrote:
As it is how did Joey carry triplets to what looks like full term and without either herself or the triplets being in need of serious medical attention in a hospital?


My aunt who died last year aged 88 was a district midwife in Leeds in the 1940s/1950s and I remember her telling many anecdotes about babies she had delivered at home, including one set of triplets born during the war into a home without running water! She also delivered a set of twins born either side of a New Year! Of the triplets, she said that they thought the woman was expecting twins and were quite unprepared for the third arrival, but all went well and the babies were healthy.
Author:  trig [ Fri Mar 26, 2010 6:03 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
Quote:
Llywela wrote:What I find most striking about all that business is that Jo has the operation to fix the mysterious 'misplaced organ' in late October/November (missing the triplets' birthday in early Nov)...and then the twins are born the following June. Now, they might have arrived earlier than expected, of course, but either way she was either already pregnant when she had the surgery, or became pregnant immediately after having surgery! Neither of which really sounds ideal

I remember mentioning this on an earlier thread. Perhaps we assume that they were very early & the result of the second honeymoon (?) immediately after surgery.

_________________


I remember my mother going into hospital to have "something removed" when I was about 9 and one of my sisters was born about 6 months later. I never twigged at the time but later I found out it was fibroids of the uturus and the doctors did remove them without harming the pregnancy so it's possible Joey's was similar.
Author:  claire [ Fri Mar 26, 2010 8:13 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
or very early IVF

A friend had an operation for a twisted ovary when pregnant - I assumed it was something along those lines
Author:  sealpuppy [ Fri Mar 26, 2010 8:28 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
I think I always assumed it was a prolapse.
Author:  Alison H [ Sat Mar 27, 2010 12:01 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
Maybe there was nothing up with her, and she and Jack just made it up as an excuse to slink off on a second honeymoon, the results of which were Geoff and Phil :wink: .
Author:  Fiona Mc [ Sat Mar 27, 2010 9:41 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
julieanne1811 wrote:
sealpuppy wrote:
:D You'd also expect Daisy or Robin to be confiding their anxieties as to why Joey had suddenly started to waddle like a duck !


When I did my midwifery traing we were told that the 'waddle' seen in pregnancy was due to the hormones relaxing the pelvic ligaments, plus the mechanics of carrying a heavy weight in front. Most pregnant women in this country do seem to adopt this posture, and I can understand why.

However, in India I never saw this. The camp women, of necessity, had very physically-active lives (trying to thresh rice over a bed-frame in that heat is unbelievable exhausting (I tried!) and yet they laughed at me and showed me how it was done with hardly breaking a sweat), and I nearly missed a heavily pregnant lady who was running up the mud steps of her house. Her posture was that of an un-prenant woman. It seemed to be the same with all of them, and I have wondered since if some of the 'waddle' is socially induced? Or is it that in our society we have proportionally less muscle tone?


It's Indian women! They all have very strong pelvic muscles as they squat flat footed over the toilets and will often sit that way to. It's very hard to do but it does strengthen those muscles, which also maked delievry a lot easier.

My mother swears by it and she used to squat over the toilet like that, to build up her pelvic muscles so she would be able to push out out more easily. She had 13 children all up, with three sets of fraternal twins and said all her labours lasted 4 hours and most her singletons were either 10lbs or just under.

My sister was 8 months pregnant before anyone could guess she was pregnant. She used to get huge in the chest which hid her pregnancy a lot more. It upset her that no one realised she was pregnant when she was 7 months along.

Large families for me weren't unusual as Mum had one simply because she wanted it and she and Dad were both from one and all their siblings had large families. The smallest one is four kids.
Author:  julieanne1811 [ Sat Mar 27, 2010 11:57 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
Yes, I can see that would work. Even when I had lost loads of weight I found it very very hard to squat flat-footed - I couldn't balance. In terms of ante-natal exercises then, perhaps it would be a good idea to teach western women to practice squatting ...? But if you haven't done from a very young age it would probably be difficult for most people.
Author:  JB [ Sat Mar 27, 2010 12:12 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Giving birth
julieanne1811 wrote:
In terms of ante-natal exercises then, perhaps it would be a good idea to teach western women to practice squatting ...? But if you haven't done from a very young age it would probably be difficult for most people.


I've read somewhere (probably MM Kaye's autobiography) that she could do this as a child but, after years spent in England at school, she found she lost the knack.
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