Birth Customs in East Anglia

Abstract

IN the June issue of Folk-Lore, Miss Barbara Newman and Mr. Leslie Newman record the result of a questionnaire sent to a large number of nurses in Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex and Cambridgeshire for information on husband's ‘labour pains’ and husband's pains other than labour, such as sympathetic morning sickness and toothache, the use of herbal remedies to ensure easy labour or to quicken labour, and customs connected with the placenta, umbilical cord and caul. Nearly all the midwives agreed that ‘husband's pains’ were quite usual. In one case a medical man had himself suffered therefrom, and had no doubt that in cases which had come under his observation the pains were both genuine and severe. As regards the prevalence of ‘husband's toothache’, it was reported that at a town council meeting in an east-Midland town, when the question of dental service for expectant and nursing mothers was raised, a member declared that the husbands required treatment rather than the wives. The belief in the power of the caul to confer protection and good luck is gradually dying out, but at one time cauls were carried by the shore fishermen all along the coast of eastern England to protect them from death by drowning. In addition to the criminal use of savin and pennyroyal for abortifacient purposes, the legitimate employment of herbal remedies, especially raspberry tea, is widely spread in the eastern counties and north-east London for relieving the many inconveniences and minor troubles of pregnancy.