To introduce one, let me firſt mention; that one of the moſt deplorable Caſes, in all the preſent Calamity, was, that of Women with Child; who when they came to the Hour of their Sorrows, and their Pains came upon them, cou’d neither have help of one Kind or another; neither Midwife or Neigbouring Women to come near them; moſt of the Midwives were dead; eſpecially, of ſuch as ſerv’d the poor; and many, if not all the Midwives of Note were fled into the Country: So that it was next to impoſſible for a poor Woman that cou’d not pay an immoderate Price to get any Midwife to come to her, and if they did, thoſe they cou’d get were generally unskilful and ignorant Creatures; and the Conſequence of this was, that a moſt unuſual and incredible Number of Women were reduc’d to the utmoſt diſtreſs. Some were deliver’d and ſpoil’d by the raſhneſs and ignorance of thoſe who pretended to lay them. Children without Number, were, I might ſay murthered by the ſame, but a more juſtifiable ignorance, pretending they would ſave the Mother, whatever became of the Child; and many Times, both Mother and Child were loſt in the ſame Manner; and eſpecially, where the Mother had the Diſtemper, there no Body would come near them, and both ſometimes periſh’d: Sometimes the Mother has died of the Plague; and the Infant, it may be half born, or born but not parted from the Mother. Some died in the very Pains of their Travel, and not deliver’d at all; and ſo many were the Caſes of this Kind, that it is hard to Judge of them.
Something of it will appear in the unuſual Numbers which are put into the Weekly Bills (tho’ I am far from allowing them to be able to give any Thing of a full Account) under the Articles of
Child-Bed.
Abortive and Stilborn.
Chriſoms and Infants.
