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The other day I Posted the Chandamama Story of the florist, Sucha, scorning half the Ujjain Kingdom and preferring to himself place his lotus at the holy feet of Lord Buddha.
I was then Googling for Buddha and discovered to my dismay and pathos that Queen Mayavati gave birth to her wonder-kid in the Lumbini Park under a Sal Tree but died seven days thereafter.
This terrible story reminded me of how prevalent postnatal maternal fatalities were during our own childhood.
My paternal aunt died during her seventh childbirth. My wife's granny died during her eighth childbirth. My own mom almost died during her sixth childbirth. The list is endless.
Most of these deaths were due to complications during labor or infections (mostly tetanus) thereafter.
All of us siblings (except one) were born within the four walls of our homes in makeshift labor rooms in conditions of unimaginable un-hygiene.
There were no trained nurses to assist in the deliveries...only 'country' midwives.
That made me Google for 'midwife'. Interesting word: The 'wife' part is ok, but where does the 'mid' come from? Well, it has nothing to do with the abbreviated 'middle' stump, say, or Mid-Summer Night's Dream.
This 'mid' comes from the German word: 'mit' (I had to clear German twice...unique in the history of Ph D Requirements...because the cool but no-fool German Prof at KGP divined that I forgot the little German I learned a decade ago at my alma mater).
'mit' in German means 'with'...That tells all there is to tell...the midwife stays 'with' the wife during the latter's labor, mostly for moral support. And moral support is of little use in Breech Pregnancies and Tetanus.
And since my forefathers, unlike us youth banished to KGP or Cornell, never learned how to cook, they had to remarry twice, thrice, and so on in a fastly converging series as long as they desperately needed food.
And, young girls marrying and dying like flies all around during their deliveries, they had to marry minor girls first, and infants by and by.
My paternal granny's marriage alliance got settled at her age 4.
But she got duly widowed at the age of 25 after her fourth successful delivery and so lived (happily ever after) till 100. I stayed with her for a year when she was 80 and she was smarter than all of me, my colleagues, and my genius-students combined.
Her younger sister-in-law got widowed much earlier and so lived to a hundred and became another Sakuntala Devi, the number wizard. My wife's paternal grandaunt got widowed at 20 after her only daughter was born and lived to a 100 and died only last month. She brought up my wife's aunties and my wife too.
The advent of Penicillin and Tetanus Toxoid changed all that since 1950.
All kids of my parents lived on unexpectedly, unasked, and unprovided for...three 'un's there like 'unwept, unhonored and unsung'...Sir Walter Scott's 'Breathes There The Man With Soul So Dead'.
Tables turned on me and my wife and we had to wait till 36 and 29 respectively for our conjugal bliss.
Also Maternity Homes sprawled all over and became inevitable but expensive. This led automatically to single kids and Cesarean Sections like my son (due to late pregnancies). These latter were also in huge demand, as they grew cheaper, since women got afraid of labor pains, not being used to them from childhood.
They became a Fashion.
Also Figure-Consciousness led to the booming trade in Lactogen and Amulspray...every wife wanted to retain her proud hour-glass structure forever (much against Mother Nature).
But I see the tide is turning again...
The latest fashion, I am told, is to insist on normal deliveries and controlled labor pains in air-conditioned 5-star Maternity Homes...just for the heck of it, since it is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
I suppose we get to see T-Tops with slogans such as: "I am no Caesar's Mom".
There has been another distressing trend:
The wife wants her hubby to be present during her unique delivery to participate in the labor and give her moral support...like the earlier midwife ;)
This may be the genesis of Paternity Leave...unheard of during my times @ KGP.
There are three Principal objections to this otherwise Equal-Opportunity outlook.
1. Labor being the gruesome thing it is (I watched a Video), the hubby may be repelled by the entire affair and walk out like Siddhartha and become a Buddha, inducting nuns and monks in His Order. This will be a repeat of history where we read that this totally unnatural state of affairs drove Buddhism out of its native land (to be replaced with the totally natural Thug and Pindari Regimes till the British arrived with their phlegmatic approach to sex).
2. Paternity being a dubious affair, it is better not flaunted in Public by a GO (unlike Marriage).
3. Postnatal Inequity: I see no way a hubby either being made to, or assist in breast-feeding the baby (the other trendy fad)...short of painful hormone therapy that made Gandhijee renounce cow's milk and take to goat's milk famously.
...Posted by Ishani
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The other day I Posted the Chandamama Story of the florist, Sucha, scorning half the Ujjain Kingdom and preferring to himself place his lotus at the holy feet of Lord Buddha.
I was then Googling for Buddha and discovered to my dismay and pathos that Queen Mayavati gave birth to her wonder-kid in the Lumbini Park under a Sal Tree but died seven days thereafter.
This terrible story reminded me of how prevalent postnatal maternal fatalities were during our own childhood.
My paternal aunt died during her seventh childbirth. My wife's granny died during her eighth childbirth. My own mom almost died during her sixth childbirth. The list is endless.
Most of these deaths were due to complications during labor or infections (mostly tetanus) thereafter.
All of us siblings (except one) were born within the four walls of our homes in makeshift labor rooms in conditions of unimaginable un-hygiene.
There were no trained nurses to assist in the deliveries...only 'country' midwives.
That made me Google for 'midwife'. Interesting word: The 'wife' part is ok, but where does the 'mid' come from? Well, it has nothing to do with the abbreviated 'middle' stump, say, or Mid-Summer Night's Dream.
This 'mid' comes from the German word: 'mit' (I had to clear German twice...unique in the history of Ph D Requirements...because the cool but no-fool German Prof at KGP divined that I forgot the little German I learned a decade ago at my alma mater).
'mit' in German means 'with'...That tells all there is to tell...the midwife stays 'with' the wife during the latter's labor, mostly for moral support. And moral support is of little use in Breech Pregnancies and Tetanus.
And since my forefathers, unlike us youth banished to KGP or Cornell, never learned how to cook, they had to remarry twice, thrice, and so on in a fastly converging series as long as they desperately needed food.
And, young girls marrying and dying like flies all around during their deliveries, they had to marry minor girls first, and infants by and by.
My paternal granny's marriage alliance got settled at her age 4.
But she got duly widowed at the age of 25 after her fourth successful delivery and so lived (happily ever after) till 100. I stayed with her for a year when she was 80 and she was smarter than all of me, my colleagues, and my genius-students combined.
Her younger sister-in-law got widowed much earlier and so lived to a hundred and became another Sakuntala Devi, the number wizard. My wife's paternal grandaunt got widowed at 20 after her only daughter was born and lived to a 100 and died only last month. She brought up my wife's aunties and my wife too.
The advent of Penicillin and Tetanus Toxoid changed all that since 1950.
All kids of my parents lived on unexpectedly, unasked, and unprovided for...three 'un's there like 'unwept, unhonored and unsung'...Sir Walter Scott's 'Breathes There The Man With Soul So Dead'.
Tables turned on me and my wife and we had to wait till 36 and 29 respectively for our conjugal bliss.
Also Maternity Homes sprawled all over and became inevitable but expensive. This led automatically to single kids and Cesarean Sections like my son (due to late pregnancies). These latter were also in huge demand, as they grew cheaper, since women got afraid of labor pains, not being used to them from childhood.
They became a Fashion.
Also Figure-Consciousness led to the booming trade in Lactogen and Amulspray...every wife wanted to retain her proud hour-glass structure forever (much against Mother Nature).
But I see the tide is turning again...
The latest fashion, I am told, is to insist on normal deliveries and controlled labor pains in air-conditioned 5-star Maternity Homes...just for the heck of it, since it is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
I suppose we get to see T-Tops with slogans such as: "I am no Caesar's Mom".
There has been another distressing trend:
The wife wants her hubby to be present during her unique delivery to participate in the labor and give her moral support...like the earlier midwife ;)
This may be the genesis of Paternity Leave...unheard of during my times @ KGP.
There are three Principal objections to this otherwise Equal-Opportunity outlook.
1. Labor being the gruesome thing it is (I watched a Video), the hubby may be repelled by the entire affair and walk out like Siddhartha and become a Buddha, inducting nuns and monks in His Order. This will be a repeat of history where we read that this totally unnatural state of affairs drove Buddhism out of its native land (to be replaced with the totally natural Thug and Pindari Regimes till the British arrived with their phlegmatic approach to sex).
2. Paternity being a dubious affair, it is better not flaunted in Public by a GO (unlike Marriage).
3. Postnatal Inequity: I see no way a hubby either being made to, or assist in breast-feeding the baby (the other trendy fad)...short of painful hormone therapy that made Gandhijee renounce cow's milk and take to goat's milk famously.
...Posted by Ishani
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