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How times have changed!
I was at my Mum's over Easter and I found a little old book amongst her book collection called "Complete Guide for the Mother-To-Be". It was first published in 1960 and it was amazing to read about how things were done in the past. This will be a little long, but I thought I would share a couple of examples...
From the chapter: "Your Visit to the Doctor"..."The first sign that you are pregnant will undoubtedly be the absence of your period. At the same time, it should be stressed that there is no need to believe you are pregnant every time you do not menstruate on exactly the day expected. You must be several weeks late before you have firm reason to think you are expecting a child. Your doctor will also be unable to tell you, for sure, until your period is six or seven weeks late, or in other words, before two successive menstrual periods have failed to appear".
Two missed periods! To think, I discovered I was pregnant with my son at 10DPO!
And...
"Laboratory tests for pregnancy" (I found this fascinating)..."The laboratory may test your urine...the urine test is undertaken to determine the presence of the pituitary hormone. Your pituitary secretes this hormone in large quantities from the onset of pregnancy and it passes into your urine. Your urine is injected into a rabbit, mouse or other small animal in order to provoke in it the characteristic changes resulting from the pregnancy hormone. Animal lovers may rest assured that the creature used will not suffer at all.
If your urine is injected into the test animal and the expected changes are not apparent, there is little chance of you being pregnant. In doubtful cases the process will be repeated after a week or two; a second negative test will completely eliminate the possibility of a pregnancy. If the test is positive, pregnancy is certain.
Tests already developed and put into use allow doctors to use specially treated papers which, when dipped into the urine samples, change color to test for loss of sugar or loss of protein by the body. Tests are already underway on a similar paper which can be used by the doctor in the consulting room to determine whether or not a woman is pregnant. In this way the doctor could tell immediately without the need for time-consuming laboratory tests. The days of the rabbit test may well be numbered."
All I can say is thank God we live in the age of HPT's!! Those poor little rabbits!
Poor rabbits. That reminded me though of an episode of the Vicar of Dibley where the vicar Geraldine (Dawn French) suspects that her verger Alice may be pregnant but Alice tell her that she's done the test and the hampster didn't turn blue. According to Alice the Dibley was of telling you are pregnant is to wee on a hampster and if it doesn't turn blue then you're not pregnant, PMSL. Great episode
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I remember when I gave birth to Master 8 and DH's mother came to visit for the first time from West Oz. She brought with her DH's baby book. BOY did we get a giggle about some of the entries and some of the things that babies used to be subjected to. Makes us look REALLY relaxed by comparison!
Lisa
Registered User
LOL @ the blue hampster!
I'd always heard the term "the rabbit died" (meaning a woman was pregnant) in old movies/tv shows. I never actually knew where the term came from though...
Lisa, out of interest, can you remember any of the things in the book?
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Well. Feeding times were absolutely RIGID, as were amounts. Oh and sleeping times were cast in iron and woe betide anybody who tried to vary them. ONLY the mother was allowed to put a baby to sleep OR pick it up again. And if the baby woke and cried when it should have been asleep it had to be left crying to train it not to be spoiled.
Every baby HAD to have 15 minutes of sunshine unclothed EVERY DAY without fail.
Oh and one of the things that really made me giggle. Every baby after being fed, from VERY early on had to be held out over a potty to TRAIN it to go.
They were SO big on the word TRAINING that I was wondering if I was reading about puppies or hoomans!
OHHHHH....and I remember some of the quaint things that the nurses wrote, like a "bonny" babe. And I stirred my DH for months when I read he was a "bouncing" babe!
Lisa
BellyBelly Member
WOW that is really intersting!
BellyBelly Member
My MIL was big on this. She said that her 2nd never became use to beign wet as he was in intesive care for a long time after birth & unclothed that he would hold on until she held him over a pot!
I was reading a site just the other day actually about EC or CE (can't remember whcih way round) techniques for a nappy free baby. It all about learning your babies cues for toileting & giving the baby cues for when he needs to go. The women who wrote the site would hold her baby over the sink and make a pssss pssssss sound and he would go. She says as he got older just being held in the postion with the tap running was enough for him to know when to go. It was very interesting but I doubt its something I will take on.
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I did a post a while ago about the rabbit test to find out iof any aussies knew about it as MIL didn`t and DH thought I was crazy.
My Mum found out about all her pregnancies through the rabbit test, this was in New Zealand.
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It's hard for me to even imagine having to do a rabbit test to determine BFPs... but then again, it's getting harder and harder to remember life without mobile phones, the internet, ipods, dvd players 8-[
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These days, in the UK, feeding "times" are good, nap "times" are good and varying them is bad - although I think mums are allowed to pick the times, so long as the determined intervals are OK. I just cannot imagine giving a mother the advice "don't feed if the child is hungry but has been fed within the last three hours". Or taking it, for that matter.
Also as soon as I could sit up I was put on a potty when I had my nappy changed - I thought that was a good idea as my mum said I was one of these delightful children who liked having their nappy taken off and then seeing how far a jet of urine would travel.
Well, DH has said if I'm still worried about no AF at the beginning of May I can go to the doctor. I'll only be 2-3 weeks late then so maybe I should hold off a bit. LOL.From the chapter: "Your Visit to the Doctor"..."The first sign that you are pregnant will undoubtedly be the absence of your period. At the same time, it should be stressed that there is no need to believe you are pregnant every time you do not menstruate on exactly the day expected. You must be several weeks late before you have firm reason to think you are expecting a child. Your doctor will also be unable to tell you, for sure, until your period is six or seven weeks late, or in other words, before two successive menstrual periods have failed to appear".
Aww the poor little bunnies!!! I'm glad those days are long gone!
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Re: How times have changed!
Emma - your certainly right all the rabbits used to die after the pregnancy tests, My Mum said she hated the fact knowing to find out if she was pregnant a poor rabbit would die because of it, she had 9 pregnancies in total with a number of miscarriages amongst them.
BellyBelly Life Member
It's amazing how things change as time goes by and technology improves. Just the difference in my pregnancy tests and appointments between Jacob and Christian were obvious let alone when I was pregnant with Matthew!!
I must borrow my mums completely outdated medical reference book from the 1920's if you want an enormous difference. She was reading bits to me when I was pregnant with Matthews and appartently single mother's and their babies will most likely die according to the book or if the mother survive's will become insane and bit admitted to an institution! Just looking at some of the pictures in the book of medical instruments would make you reconsider pregnancy or even getting sick :shock:
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