Word: childbirth
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...such change: eggs are no longer recommended for infants under nine months of age because the iron in the yolk is poorly absorbed by babies and may interfere with the absorption of iron from other foods. The co-authors added and expanded sections on the role of fathers in childbirth, breast-feeding for working mothers, and child abuse and neglect. Spock, a ban-the-bomb advocate since 1962, included a personal note sternly urging parents to vote for candidates who favor a nuclear freeze...
EASIER TO substantiate are the expectations and duties of wives. Several guides were written for wives advising them to be modest and industrious. Above all, procreation was a prime function of marriage. Most married women were in "virtually perpetual pregnancy," because effective contraception had not yet been adopted. In childbirth, women faced tremendous constraints that did indeed make them a weaker vessel. A high infant mortality rate resulted from the lack of disinfectant, the limited use of forceps and mishandling by midwives. The midwives lacked medical knowledge because they were not taught Latin, and only a few English-language medical...
...general rule; contraceptives were not widely introduced until the 18th century. Until then, couples relied on recipes−marjoram, "thyme, parsley, the juice of the herb savin−that did little good. A study of aristocratic women suggests that 45% died before 50, one-quarter of those in childbirth. If perpetual pregnancy did not do a woman in, smallpox well might. Life expectancy was 35. If a 17th century woman should survive to old age, she was in danger of being taken for a witch. In a 1648 treatise, John Stearne explained witchcraft as a woman's game...
Other attitudes are also at fault: by postponing childbirth until their mid-or even late 30s, women risk a barren future. A Yale University study of 40 childless women found that after 35 years of age, the time it takes to conceive lengthens from an average of six months to more than two years...
Though familiar to us all, pain is mercifully difficult to remember once it has passed (if it were not, it has been observed, every family would have but one child). Doctors refer to the short-lived suffering of childbirth or surgery or even a toothache as "acute pain"; it is terrible at the time, but ultimately it passes. For untold millions, however, pain does not pass. It sings on through the night, month after month, overwhelming sleep, stifling pleasure, shrinking experience, until there is nothing but pain. This is chronic pain, and its sufferers are legion: there are more than...