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

pressure, protein in the urine and oedema (swelling).
     
    premature baby (care of) : Skin to skin care is now widely used for the care of premature babies. Separation of the mother and baby in modern neonatal intensive care units is kept to a minimum and contact between the mother and her baby is encouraged. Skin to skin care is also known as Kangaroo Care. The modern history of its use goes back to the early 1980s in Bogota, Columbia, where it was developed out of medical need as there were not enough incubators to keep the premature babies warm. The success of Kangaroo Care has now spread all over the world. Kangaroo Care works because the baby is kept warm so uses fewer calories, needs less oxygen and has a better breathing rate. Babies receiving this form of care have also been found to cry less and sleep better than those cared for in an incubator.
     
    primigravida : A woman pregnant with her first baby.
     
    pubic bone : The centre and front part of the pelvis.
     
     
    sacro anterior position (left or right) : Positions that a breech baby could be in immediately before delivery. The baby’s sacrum (bone at the base of the spine) lies at the front of the mother’s pelvis.
     
    scrape : Another name for D and C (see above).
     
    second stage : The time when the neck of the womb or uterus is fully open until the delivery of the baby.
     
    shave : The perineum was shaved for labour until the 1980s. It was thought to make the skin cleaner for delivery. Research has shown that shaving does not improve the cleanliness of the perineum either before or after delivery.
     
    sim’s speculum : An instrument that looks like a double ended shoe horn bent into a gently curved M shape used to stretch the vaginal walls.
     
    spirochaeta : A type of organism such as treponema pallidum , the cause of syphilis.
     
    suprapubic : Above the pubic bone.
     
     
    third stage : The time from the birth of the baby to the complete delivery of the placenta.
     
     
    uterus : Also known as the womb.
     
     
    vagina : Birth canal.
     
    vernix caseosa : The sticky white substance that is on the baby’s skin at birth, usually seen in the skin folds.
     
    vulva : A woman’s genital organs.
     
     
    waters : A protective bag of water surrounds the baby in the womb. The bag breaks during labour and the water drains away.
     

References
     
    Cowell B., and Wainwright D., Behind the Blue Door , Cassells Ltd,
London 1981.
     
    Morton, L. T., A Medical Bibliography (3rd edn, The Trinity Press,
London, 1970).
     
    Myles, Margaret F., Text Book for Midwives . V. Ruth Bennett and
L. K. Brown, eds (Churchill Livingstone, Edinburgh, 1999).
     
    Richardson H., ‘Kangaroo Care: why does it work?’, Midwifery
Today , 44 (1997), 50-51.
     
    Stables D., Physiology in Childbearing with Anatomy and Related
Biosciences (Balliere Tindall, Edinburgh, 1999).
     

1
    The Midwives of St Raymund Nonnatus is a pseudonym. I have taken the name from St Raymund Nonnatus, the patron saint of midwives, obstetricians, pregnant women, childbirth and newborn babies. He was delivered by Caesarean section (“ non natus ” is the Latin for “not born”) in Catalonia, Spain, in 1204. His mother, not surprisingly, died at his birth. He became a priest and died in 1240.
     
    2
    From Behind the Blue Door in A History of the Royal College of Midwives , Hansard, p. 23. This is a quote from the proposed Bill for the Registration of Midwives, 1890, from a speech made by Charles Bradlaugh MP.
     
    3
    from John Keats, ‘Ode to a Nightingale’.