De practyk der vroed'meesters en vroed'vrouwen, Of de wyse van een vrouw' te helpen in haar kindbaren. Be...

It is some years ago that I found a child strangled in this manner in a house on Pleyster Street. The midwife had done everything she could for a whole hour, without being able to deliver it for lack of strength, for she was very elderly. The child would have been saved if I had been called early enough; but the child was strangled and dead when I arrived. One can conclude from this that a midwife needs strength, and that she should be neither too young nor too old, for the young often lack prudence, and the old lack strength.

And if the child is dead and strangled in the passage, one must nevertheless not fail to deliver the child, for the sake of the mother. For if one did not deliver her and pull this child out, the woman could die or at least become very ill.

To deliver this woman then, I was fortunate to have strength, which I boldly put to work, not fearing for the child since it was dead. I only took good care not to injure the mother, as I have seen others do in similar situations, where not only the vagina but also the urethra and rectum

were torn in such a way that the women suffered great inconveniences for the rest of their lives, in which the feces and urine would run out through the vagina against their will. Once the child is born, it is not entirely finished; one must also have the afterbirth, for if that remains behind, it can usually bring serious complications to the woman.

If the afterbirth does not follow but is very firm, it is necessary to pull it out. One should wind the umbilical cord two or three times around the fingers of the left hand to assist the right, which, with fingers straight and joined together, lubricated with oil or fresh butter, one shall gently insert along the cord. One must carefully watch the mouth of the womb, which, due to the violence it suffered from the passage of the child that had slumped into the folds of the vagina, is often very delicate, and take care not to scrape it. Yet, take great care not to let go of the cord, which guides the fingers to the afterbirth. When one has arrived there and finds it stuck, one must let the fingers slide toward the low and lower part, and try to separate it gently and gradually; which is done in the same way as one separates the inside of an orange or China apple i.e., a sweet orange from