Call the Midwife: A True Story of the East End in the 1950S

in all teaching hospitals, medical students were attached to a teacher midwife, and would go out with her in the district to learn the skill of practical midwifery. All GPs had been trained by a midwife. But these facts seemed to be barely known.
     
    The fundus tightens and rises a little in the abdomen as a contraction grips the muscles. Perhaps this is it, I think. But no. It doesn’t feel right. Too soft after the contraction.
     
    Another wait.
     
    I reflect upon the incredible advance in midwifery practice over the century; the struggle dedicated women have had to obtain a proper training, and to train others. There has been recognised training for less than fifty years. My mother and all her siblings were delivered by an untrained woman, usually called the “goodwife” or the “handywoman”. No doctor was present, I was told.
     
    Another contraction coming. The fundus rises under my hand and remains hard. At the same time the forceps that I had clamped to the cord move a little. I test them. Yes, another four to six inches of cord comes out easily. The placenta has separated.
     
    I ask Muriel to hand the baby over to her mother. She knows what I am going to do. I massage the fundus in my hand until it is hard and round and mobile. Then I grasp it firmly, and push downwards and backwards into the pelvis. As I push, the placenta appears at the vulva, and I lift it out with my other hand. The membranes slide out, followed by a gush of fresh blood and some clotted blood.
     
    I feel weak with relief. It is accomplished. I put the kidney dish on the dresser, to await my inspection, and sit beside Muriel for a further ten minutes massaging the fundus, to ensure that it remains hard and round, which will expel residual blood clots.
     
    In later years oxytocics would be routinely given after the birth of the baby, causing immediate and vigorous uterine contraction, so that the placenta is expelled within three to five minutes of the baby’s birth. Medical science marches on! But in the 1950s, we had no such aids to delivery.
     
    All that remains is to clean up. While Mrs Hawkin is washing and changing her daughter, I examine the placenta. It seems complete, and the membranes intact. Then I examine the baby, who appears healthy and normal. I bathe and dress him, in clothes that are ridiculously too big, and reflect upon Muriel’s joy and happiness, her relaxed easy countenance. She looks tired, I think, but no sign of stress or strain. There never is! There must be an in-built system of total forgetfulness in a woman; some chemical or hormone that immediately enters the memory part of the brain after delivery, so that there is absolutely no recall of the agony that has gone before. If this were not so, no woman would ever have a second baby.
     
    When everything is shipshape, the proud father is permitted to enter. These days, most fathers are with their wives throughout labour, and attend the birth. But this is a recent fashion. Throughout history, as far as I know, it was unheard of. Certainly in the 1950s, everyone would have been profoundly shocked at such an idea. Childbirth was considered to be a woman’s business. Even the presence of doctors (all men until the late nineteenth century) was resisted, and it was not until obstetrics became recognised as a medical science that men attended childbirth.
     
     
    Jim is a little man, probably less than thirty but he looks nearer forty. He sidles into the room looking sheepish and confused. Probably my presence makes him tongue-tied, but I doubt if he has ever had a great command of the English language. He mutters, “All right then, girl?” and gives Muriel a peck on the cheek. He looks even tinier beside his buxom wife, who could give him a good five stone in weight. Her flushed pink, newly washed skin makes him look even more grey, pinched and dried out. All the result of a sixty-hour working week in the docks, I think to myself.
     
    Then he looks at the baby, hums a bit - he is obviously thinking deeply about a suitable epithet - clears his throat, and says, “Gaw, he aint ’alf a bit of all right, then.” And then he leaves.
     
    I regret that I have not been able to get to know the men of the East End. But it is quite impossible. I belong to the women’s world, to the taboo subject of childbirth. The men are polite and respectful to us midwives, but completely withdrawn from any familiarity, let alone friendship. There is a total divide