Living and Dying in Georgian London's Lying-In Hospitals

Abstract

This article uses previously untapped archival sources to revise the dominant, negative view of London's eighteenth-century maternity hospitals, by reconstructing daily life at the British Lying-in Hospital. Though the hospital in fact helped to support women's work as midwives, its institutional practices altered the experience of childbirth both negatively and positively, which inspired rumors, criticism, and inflammatory published attacks. The article illuminates how two unrecognized events in 1751—the hospital's first epidemiological crisis, and the arrival of a new man-midwife who used instruments—may have become intertwined in the public imagination and helped to shape the terrible reputation of lying-in hospitals, despite their overall positive eighteenth-century record.

Matthew Flinders Senior (1751–1802): Surgeon and ‘man midwife’

“…Many women gave birth in lying-in hospitals, 14,15 at such places as Middlesex General Hospital, where lying-in wards opened in 1747; the British Lying-in Hospital, Brownlow Street, London in 1749; the City of London Lying-in Hospital in 1750; the General Lying-in Hospital or ‘Queen Charlotte’s’ in 1752, and the Westminster Lying-in Hospital, which opened in 1763. The day-to-day running of the lying-in hospitals was undertaken by a matron (who was always a widow).…”

“…She was responsible for normal deliveries, but subordinate to the medical officers who had overall responsibility for the birthing women. These medical officers were members of the board of the hospital who did the hiring and firing, 14,15 and the hospitals became the centres for teaching obstetrics and midwifery. While midwives could pay for instruction within these hospitals, students were mainly male and it was from this environment that the role of the man-midwife flourished.…”

Maternity records in Edinburgh and Aberdeen in 1936: a comparison

“…This has explored the changes over time in the weighting that should be given to their varied functions as providers of medical care, education to pupils of both sexes, and shelter to the destitute. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] In addition, personal health records have been used to demonstrate changes in obstetric management, particularly in the 20th century, and even to argue that maternal health before labour was a bigger factor in maternal mortality than the status of the attendant. 9,[11][12][13][14] However, such studies have been essentially inward-looking, and a contrasting approach was taken by W. Peter Ward, where he recognised birth weights, lengths and gestation as indicators of the health and behaviour of the wider society surrounding the institution.…”

Review of periodical literature published in 2004

“…This falls short of a ringing endorsement of Mckeown's thesis, which also finds little support in the century before 1750, when high mortality rates failed to respond to a secular improvement in living standards. Cody’s work on the British Lying‐in Hospital challenges the view that the clutch of such hospitals created in London c .1750 were blighted by excessive mortality, or controlled by forceps‐waving male‐midwives who ‘medicalized’ childbirth to assert their status over female practitioners. Mortality rates equated with general metropolitan levels, although overcrowding created periodic outbreaks of puerperal fever.…”