Obstetrical fistula: a malady hidden by shame
Layla A. Al-Jailani Yemen Photo by Kat Jayne from Pexels Nouria strolls across the kitchen, making lunch for her family as she does every day. Her stride is slightly wobbly, but any observer would think this was a healthy young woman. What they do not see, however, is the hidden anguish, pain, and shame […]
Rural home visit 1973
Paul Rousseau Charleston, South Carolina, United States The road frozen and snowflakes fluttering, I travel to a distant farmhouse—the sick in bed on her side, hair in sweat-wet crescents and vomitus on the sheets, the husband wailing, “She’s dying, she’s dying,” and a dog and three toddlers lapping milk from the linoleum—and as I […]
Wet nursing: a historical perspective
Mariella Scerri Mellieha, Malta A Russian wet nurse, c. 1913. Painted by Frederic de Haenen public domain via Wikimedia. Wet nursing, a form of breastfeeding provided by someone other than an infant’s biological mother,1 has a long and sometimes controversial history. Death in childbirth, a mother’s illness, as well as cultural habits and circumstance […]
A birth remembered
F. Gonzalez-Crussi Chicago, Illinois, United States Figure 1. The Birth of Benjamin and the Death of Rachel, by Francesco Furini (1600 or 1603-1646). Credit: Wellcome Collection. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Memory is to old age as presbyopia (far-sightedness) is to eyesight. Presbyopia makes you lose the ability to see clearly at a normal near […]
James Simpson, who made childbirth painless
A large jolly man with broad shoulders, large hands, blue eyes, and a charismatic personality, James Young Simpson was said to have been the most popular man in Edinburgh since the death of Sir Walter Scott.1 Born in 1811 at Bathgate, he was the seventh son of a village baker in a poor family housed in […]
Labor of love
Mary Oak Seattle, Washington, USA “Newborn and Mama” Photo by Susan Strohm. Each week my elderly father and I watch babies being born. In the silver-shadowed flickers of a television, we sit as we often did in my childhood. Now in the spectral shade of his decelerated years, I care for him. He spends […]
The missing chapter in our curriculum
Alexandra Adams Hershey, Pennsylvania A maternity nurse examines a pregnant patient at a rural community health center in northern Uganda. Photo by Alexandra Adams. The rural village of Paimol in northern Uganda, located four hours away from the nearest hospital. Photo by Alexandra Adams. A fourteen-year-old girl, large with child, presented to her community health […]
Forceps: a brief history
Sara Buck “He’s a little old man very pale of complexion / Into many things makes a narrow inspection / His head’s very long and his hand’s very small” are the mysterious lines that open an anonymous 17th century English poem.1 Often presumed to refer to Hugh Chamberlen the Elder—the last of the famous Huguenot […]
Birth trays in the Italian Renaissance
Rachel Baker Recurring outbreaks of plague and their resulting demographic catastrophes largely contributed to the Renaissance emphasis on family and procreation. After the initial epidemic in 1348, the plague returned more than a dozen times over the next two centuries. Childbirth was seen as a vital measure to combat plague’s devastation, and a woman’s […]
On a miraculous birth
Frank Gonzalez-Crussi Chicago, Illinois, United States For all the odes that sing the advent of a new life, childbirth is a bloody, messy affair. Those of us who, by reason of our trade, observed it at close range know that it is also a scission, a brutal separation of two beings, during which life issues […]