Childbirth Flashcards
What is midwifery?
A branch of nursing that helps with childbirth.
What is a midwife?
A nurse who specialises in the care of pregnant women and new born babies, including childbirth.
What is obstetrics?
The branch of medicine that covers childbirth.
What is gynaecology?
The branch of medicine that deals with problems specific to women, but not childbirth.
What doctors were available for women is the early Islamic Arab world?
Female doctors helped with gynaecology and obstetrics.
How were midwives trained in the Christian west?
It was an apprenticeship system (training on the job).
When did doctors and midwives start having some connection in the Christian west?
16th century.
What was Paré’s connection with childbirth?
He covered pregnancy in one of his books - but he also recorded 35 live births from one pregnancy?
When was the earliest surviving book on midwifery written?
1513, by Rösslin.
What was a massive step forward in obstetrics, developed by the Chamberlens family?
Forceps - they fit wither side of baby’s head and can be used to apply traction to help mum.
What unusual thing happened with French midwives in 17th century France?
The elite had a fashion for male midwives, but most people still preferred women.
When did the British school of midwifery open?
1725
What doctor wrote “The theory and practice of midwifery”?
Smellie
How did traditional midwives feel about Smellie’s book “The theory and practice of midwifery”?
They were very sceptical.
What do gravestones and registers of death tell us about childbirth?
It was dangerous, many women died in their 20s, during or soon after pregnancy
When options were there for contraception?
Primitive condoms were available before the 17th century, but lack of contraception made chastity the only option. (In old books, the doctor will tell the husband that the wife must not have more children for her health).
Why was midwifery practised separately from other branches of medicine?
Social convention; doctors mainly male; only affected women; God ordained women should suffer in childbirth… etc
When did population growth start rising?
The industrial age
What were conditions like in the cities?
Poor. Pollution related diseases, rickets, no exercise, epidemics of smallpox, cholera, TB
What was the objection raised to using anaesthetics for childbirth?
Religious - the curse in Genesis.
Who defeated the view that anaesthetics in childbirth were wrong?
Queen Victoria - during the birth of Prince Leopold she used chloroform. (Don’t forget she was head of the church!)
Who started using chloride of lime to reduce deaths of women in childbirth?
Semmelweis, reduce puerpural fever.
When did gynaecology start as a branch of medicine?
Mid 1800s, in the US. First gynaecological hospital in New York in 1850s.
Who first thought that people could increase beyond the capacity of the planet to feed them?
Malthus - 1798.
What was the effect of safer childbirth?
Population growth,
When were the first family planning clinics opened?
1920s. Offered barrier methods, and spermicides.
When was the contraceptive pill available?
1960s.
What changed the idea that the pill, and antibiotics, meant that casual sex would not be a problem?
HIV.
What is the most famous infertility treatment?
IVF
When was the first human fertilisation outside the womb, prior to putting the fertilised egg back, done?
1977
What can be frozen to preserve people’s chances of having children in the future?
Eggs, semen, embryos. (Useful as some treatments leave people infertile).
When Queen Victoria used chloroform it changed people’s attitudes. What was necessary for her action to change people’s attitudes?
Communication - without mass communication attitudes can only change very slowly.
