Ungovernable

  Q: Forget “Bloody Mary.” Slumber parties should involve chanting “Non-Clotting Bloody Victoria” three times into a mirror. Mean queen. What other preparations are needed in the birthing chamber?

  A: Not much. It was the desire of all in the medical community that Nature would do most of the work—it was the highest hope of all birth attendants that they wouldn’t have to interfere. When labor commenced they mostly kept their hands to themselves if they could, aside from smearing lard on your perineal area, occasional pokes at your vagina to make sure everything was running smoothly, and telling you to be quiet.

  Though his wife begged him to change the name, Karl’s Sweet Cream No-Sting Vagina Butter remained one of his top sellers.

  Q: I’m giving birth, I’m not required to be “quiet.” Furthermore… lard on my what now?

  A: Lard, oil, or butter was used to keep you from needing episiotomy stitching. A tear like that was much more likely to become infected before antiseptics and antibiotics. So, as Charles H. Robinson’s collection of baby advice The Science of Eugenics and Sex Life urges, “Pay attention to oiling the vagina and surrounding tissues with pure sweet lard or unsalted butter.”

  Thank heavens he specifies unsalted butter. The salted kind would sting something awful.

  And as for being quiet, show some dignity. You don’t want your doctor thinking he has to deal with two crybabies in this birthing. First of all, if you’re in a great deal of pain, it’s a failing of your own character. One Dr. Dervrees, being quoted in the same publication, says the only reason you have pain at all is because you’ve corrupted your health through bad choices and sloth: “[Pain] is a perversion of nature caused by living inconsistent with the most healthy conditions of the system, and that such regimen as should insure completely healthy conditions might be counted on with certainty to do away with such pain.”

  Q: That arrogant little turd! So even in the nineteenth century they expected women to gain only four pounds, survive on kale and prenatal vitamins, and enter the delivery room still sweating from running a triathlon?

  A: Mm. Most of those things hadn’t been invented—none, if you count eating kale as a modern aberration. But they did expect a supreme display of self-control from the mother during her suffering. And not just men. A young midwife (who had not given birth herself), writing for the same publication, tells the state of the mother she was called upon to deliver of a stillborn child: “The indolent over-fleshy wife of a neighbor sent for me; my parents objected on account of my being so young, but the young husband pleaded that I might come. We… found her one mass of fat lying on the bed weeping and groaning for help.” The midwife contrasts that perversion of nature to many other pregnancies she’s attended, with healthy women delivering healthy young babes with hardly a yelp.

  Q: She’s picking on a poor woman whose baby was stillborn for being fat while pregnant?

  A: Don’t forget “indolent.” And whiny. Luckily the Connecticut Training School for Nurses has some tips for helping a laboring mother get through the ordeal with dignity: “The midwife can counsel [the mother] to be brave and not endanger the effect of the pains by useless tossings or loud outcries.… It often helps on a tedious labor if the patient will hold her breath during a pain, and not scream and breathe rapidly, as women are likely to do.”

  An added benefit of the supine birthing position: Often no pain medication was needed if the water stains on the ceiling were interesting enough.

  Q: I fear to ask, but what sort of positions are appropriate for the actual birth?

  A: Most doctors encouraged movement and walking until the “grinding” labor pains notched up to “bearing down” pains. As for appropriate positions for childbirth, American and English mothers were trained in two distinct manners for parturition. Americans were to lie on their backs, supine and spread, as is still traditional today.

  Englishwomen, according to The Family Doctor, or The Home Book of Health and Medicine, written by “A Dispensary Surgeon” in 1858, “should be placed on the bed, previously guarded by some waterproof material on her left side, and not far from the edge, so that needful assistance can be easily rendered. She should have a tightly rolled pillow placed between her knees.”

  Side delivery as performed by pervert male midwife.

  Both of these positions were meant to offer physicians as much access as possible. Other cultures, as depicted in 1883’s Labor Among Primitive Peoples by George Julius Engelmann, cared more about getting the child to exit the mother than having her vagina accessible, and encouraged the woman to use gravity.

  Q: What happens after the birth is over?

  A: As little as humanly possible. Bed rest after birth was non-negotiable, clear into the twentieth century. In the infamous Searchlights on Health by B. G. Jefferis and J. F. Nichols, the new mother is encouraged to embrace a level of inhuman stillness on par with a Buddhist deity.

  After the birth of the baby, the mother should be kept perfectly quiet for the first 24 hours and not allowed to talk or see anyone except her nearest relations, however well she may seem. She should not get out of bed for ten days or two weeks, nor sit up in bed for nine days. The more care taken of her at this time, the more rapid will be her recovery when she does get about. She should go up and down stairs slowly, carefully, and as seldom as possible for six weeks. She should not stand more than is unavoidable during that time, but sit with her feet up and lie down when she has time to rest. She should not work a sewing machine with a treadle for at least six weeks, and avoid any unusual strain or over-exertion.

  Obstetrical binders were tight cloth wraps intended to help keep a new mother’s insides on the inside.

  It seemed so much could befall a postpartum mother—her organs wrecked and displaced, her strength diminished, fluids trying to regain pre-pregnancy levels—that most doctors seemed to take the stance that if the woman just stayed still, very, very still, perhaps her body wouldn’t notice the grievous insult it had just suffered.

  For rural and working-class women, this would be some of the only “leisure” time their lives would ever allow. It was standard practice for neighbor women and family to dutifully arrive at the recovering mother’s home, misplace her crockery, snoop through her correspondences, and gently insult the patient’s decorating scheme, all of which helped speed a mother’s recovery and reclamation of her own home.

  Q: If bed rest was so important, did slaves and servants get time off after having a baby?

  A: Oh! Ha-ha! Sure! In fact, the lady of the manor would come down and sponge out their episiotomy tears with heirloom linens thrice daily! HA!

  No. Absolutely not. You’re ridiculous.

  Servants as would be found in upper-class American and British homes would be dismissed from their positions as soon as it was discovered they were with child, even if they were married. Another reason poor women of the era were tempted to conceal pregnancy and another reason doing so was illegal.

  As for black American slaves and Native Americans, Victorian science tells us that they didn’t require bed rest. Or pain control. Or doctors or midwives or… basic human rights. Just a nice dark corner to curl up in for an hour or so. Like a housecat.

  John Dye wrote with admiration of the method of birth by Indian “squaws.” That is, one that provided no inconveniences to anyone. Giving birth is no reason for supper to be late.

  A pregnant squaw does not occasion any concern from her companions. She performs the usual drudgery of her life up to the very hour of her labor, making no preparation for the coming “pappoose.” When she realizes that the hour for delivery is at hand, she enters her cabin or betakes herself to some stream or spring, gives birth, washes the young “Injun” in the cold water, straps it upon her back, and before she has been scarcely missed, has returned a full-fledged mother, and resumes her labors unconscious of having undergone any very wonderful ordeal.

  Illustration of the favored birth position of the healthy American Negress.


  Q: He honestly believes Native American women just pop out babies (did he say “Injun”?) without even feeling like they’ve undergone any “ordeal”?

  A: Yes. And not just the Injuns, either. African American slaves were also remarkable baby birthers. Hardly slowed the cotton harvest at all. (Least they better not slow it.) Says Dye: “It is well known that the Slave women of this country required very little or no attention at confinement. Their labors are generally of short duration, the pain moderate, and the woman is incapacitated from performing her usual avocations only a few hours.”

  Q: The slave women were expected to be back in the fields picking crops within hours of birth, but white women lay in bed for two weeks??

  A: I think we’re supposed to look at it as… a blessing God bestowed on an otherwise downtrodden people.

  Q: Seriously?

  A: Believe me, it would be a delight to tell you that I’m joking and men were never this blithe and heartless toward any woman, much less one in labor. But this is what was recorded, on the few occasions it was recorded. Welcome to the past. It’s quite awful here.

  But as in many awful places, food and drink can mitigate the misery. Let’s see if that’s the case for Victorian children.

  4

  My Child Will Eat Neither Mush, Mucilage, Porridge, Pablum, Gruel, nor Loblolly. Is Pickiness God’s Way of Culling the Herd?

  On Feeding Children

  Q: Don’t bother with an introduction. Just teach me about wholesome old-fashioned eating without making me feel sad or irritated.

  A: I am here to serve. Let’s learn how to feed our child as healthfully as possible. I’m certain no depressing controversy will be unearthed while pursuing that goal! Now, will you breastfeed or not?

  Q: Seriously? C’mon. Don’t let’s argue about breastfeeding versus bottle feeding. It’s a very tired argument.

  A: I agree. I’m taking it as a given that we both know you’re a bad mother if you don’t give your Victorian child breast milk. Pathetic excuse for a parent, actually. An utter monster. Murder glinting in your maniacal eye.

  Q: How dare you. People like you are why there is so much mother-on-mother hate crime. Or hate-typing, at least, in internet forums. You need to be a little more open-minded about—

  A: Oh, calm your engorged teats. You wanted to be Victorian about this, correct? So first consider the availability of scientifically developed FDA and pediatrician-approved baby formula at your local Victorian dry goods store. Nonexistent. There are breast milk substitutes, and I will tell you about them, but to do so will require repeated use of the term “ass milk.”

  Q: Ass milk…?

  A: I know! Breastfeeding is less of a lifestyle choice in this world than—especially in the early part of the era—a requirement.

  “The Fashionable Mama” excretes maternal love without sacrificing style.

  So, when I ask if you will breastfeed, I’m asking whether you will choose to feed the child from your own breast, or enlist the service of a wet nurse. A wet nurse is a woman hired to, depending on your finances, live in your home and nourish the child through its first year, or take your child into her home for the same purpose.

  Q: Women gave their babies to strangers for the first year just so they didn’t have to nurse? I’ll feed my own child, thanks.

  A: That was usually considered preferable. Except if you were an unfit milker. According to 1845’s The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease by Dr. Thomas Bull, there are “Mothers Who Ought Never Suckle.” They include, naturally, a mother who is deathly ill with tuberculosis or any other wasting disease.

  But it’s not just the sick in body who need to find a heartier teat for their babe. Also on the “Do Not Feed” blacklist were nervous or overprotective mothers. Says Bull:

  The mother who is alarmed at any accidental change she may happen to notice in her infant’s countenance,—who is excited and agitated by the ordinary occurrences of the day;—such a parent will do her offspring more harm than good by attempting to suckle it. Her milk will be totally unfit for its nourishment: at one time it will be deficient in quantity,—[and] depraved in its quality.

  Q: If I’m nervous about my newborn’s health, like every new mom is… it means that my boobs are depraved and I shouldn’t nurse?

  A: Oversimplifying, but yes. You suffer from nipple neurosis and you shouldn’t inflict it on your infant. So we must find a wet nurse! Physically, you must check to see that her tongue is clean, and digestion good; her teeth and gums sound and perfect; her skin free from eruption, and her breath sweet. As for her breasts, Bull elucidates:

  A good breast should be firm and well-formed; its size not dependent upon a large quantity of fat, which will generally take away from its firmness, giving it a flabby appearance, but upon its glandular structure, which conveys to the touch a knotted, irregular, and hard feel; and the nipple must be perfect, of moderate size, but well developed.

  Preferable type of breasts for wet-nursing.

  Q: I don’t wanna sniff and grope a strange woman.

  A: Well, maybe your husband will do it for you. Another important consideration is how your nurse came to be lactating. If she has her own children, she’s going to try to feed them as well. Not optimal. Rather, seek the rare jewel of the wet nurse, a respectable lactating lady who, in the best case, has recently lost both her husband and baby.

  Q: And this newly widowed grieving mother will give better milk than I can because I’m sooo nervous that I occasionally get up at night to check that my baby is still sleeping on his back?

  A: Put them on their stomach, actually, so they don’t choke on spit-up. And so their growing spines aren’t compressed. Thoroughly bundled in many blankets so they don’t catch a chill. And at any rate, make sure their heads are pointed north. Because of magnetism and air circulation… something. I digress. If the lactating woman is going to be all woe-is-me because of recent misfortunes, then no, don’t employ her.

  To illustrate the damage of a fretful wet nurse, Dr. Bull tells of being called to tend a baby in convulsions. He was puzzled, because he’d seen the baby just a few days before, healthy and suckling happily with his nurse.

  The story came out that the wet nurse’s father had paid the girl a call, screamed at her, and beat her.

  Strict orders were given to forbid the man the house in future: but the mischief was done; for it was but too evident that the alarming state in which I found the child had been produced by the deleterious change which had taken place in the nurse’s milk. Remedial measures were used; the breast-milk withheld; and the infant, although it continued for many days in a doubtful state, eventually recovered; the young woman’s milk, however, was altogether driven away, and another wet-nurse was, without delay, obliged to be obtained.

  The trick with canned milk is to find that perfect balance of botulism: a little zing with minimal fatalities.

  Q: That’s horrible. Every single thing you just said was horrible. No wet nurse. What other options were there?

  A: Toward the end of the century the process for making “evaporated” or “condensed” milk would become widespread, allowing many “milk food” substitutes to hit the market. There were problems, of course. The canning process was not yet reliable, the primitive baby bottles and pap boats were difficult to clean, and lack of refrigeration caused rampant sickness in infants, particularly in summer months when spoilage was higher. Which is another reason so many mothers reached for ass milk.

  French nurses holding newborns to suckle directly from donkey udders, 1895.

  Q: …

  A: Mm? What? Do you have a question?

  Q: I swear you’re enjoying this horror show. Do you mean donkey milk? Can you just call it that?

  A: Historical accuracy is my most sincere goal; they legitimately called it ass m—

  Q: I’m closing the book.

  A: FINE! Fine, yes, donkey. How we all agreed that cows—those foul, dead-eyed, flea-bitten fecal bag
s of flatulence—were the animal it was okay to drink fluids out of is a wonderment. The milk of the donkey, though it has fallen out of fashion, has been a favorite health drink since the time of the ancient Greeks. Samuel Barker recommended it heartily in 1860’s Children and How to Manage Them in Health and Sickness:

  Asses’ Milk, in recovery from illness, when the vital powers continue very low, has, with the addition of cream, occasionally answered where all other food has signally failed. This is probably due to its containing so small a proportion of casein,—the indigestible element. Unfortunately this milk is not readily procured except in large towns.

  “No, thank you. I’m watching my teeny figure. Trying to keep it alive.”

  It doesn’t pack the all-around punch of cow’s milk, which, whether by nature or selective breeding, has the most protein of domesticated animal milk, including human. But that’s a good thing where babies are concerned. Donkey milk has more lactose (sugar), and is most similar to human milk, being gentle on tiny tummies and quite sweet.

  At any rate, within a few months you can wean your child to pap, a watered- or milked-down version of whatever cooked cereal grain your family regularly eats.

  Q: Once they start eating solid food, how much should I give them?

  A: However much they ask for. For the love of all that’s holy, don’t follow any rules about portion except the ones set forth by your own baby. As you’ll see, horrible results await if you—