SIR, — Thank heavens Leslie Adrian has draw° attention to the fact
that motherhood is not the overwhelmingly (and sentimentally) elevating experi- ence it's cracked up to be. Women are supposed conveniently to forget the nastiness of childbirth pretty quickly. It seems they have equally short memories for horrors peculiar to the National Health and its laughingly termed maternity 'care: My first baby (though not one of the innumerable medical pundits concerned realised it was the baby) laid me flat for three months, unable to walk, or even—when I was playing at 'isn't she. being wonder- fully brave?'—laugh. My own doctor declared there was nothing she could do and refused to make I second visit despite phone calls. When at last I was able to totter round wincing ghoulishly at everY step, I, like everybody else, participated in the clinical two-hour queue. Needless to say there were more mothers than there were chairs. I staggered off to ante-natal classes to discover the inside secrets of a happy birth and lay like one of ten whales breathing in unison, absorbing the gospel text LIS eagerly as if St. Paul himself had been dictating. How nice it would have been had there been sonic liaison between the people at this end and those in the hospital. When my thirty hours' worth of labour wa,5 under way, everything I'd been taught was flail): contradicted. Deep breaths were swopped for shall breaths and vice versa—though, in fact, neither appeared to be fractionally helpful. I was forbiddeO to push when the second stage came, and since had been drummed into me that this could damage the baby's head, I was as obedient as my bodily Pr°. cesses would permit. There comes a point, of course, when these become ten times stronger than You; flagging will-power. I had to push. I was terrifleu; Later I was violently angry—when it turned ou` I had been prevented from pushing simply because the delivery room was full. Again l'd been told that a certain amount of undignified huffing and puffing was inevitable during delivery, and not to worry. When my turn came, I was brusquely told to shut up and stop making such an awful noise. Through- out the whole of an agonising labour I had been Violently sick. Here I was lucky—there was someone there for mopping up and comfort: my husband. If he hadn't been there, nobody else would have been. They were too busy.
While it's clear from what I've said that the staff were overworked on that occasion, I neverthe- less feel that any nurse who discovers irritation comes more easily to her than dedication, should change her job. And fast. And, of course, the boSsy brutality doesn't .end there. Once the ordeal's over and you feel you're the smartest cookie ever, your baby becomes the signed and sealed possession of the ward sister, who will only allow you to look at. touch and feed your child when she deems fit— a minimal right she absolutely denies your hus- band. He, in fact, is regarded as some uncouth intruder, guilty of having inflicted a vilely unspeak- able offence upon his wife. If his knuckles are any- where in sight, they get rapped.
This, of course, is not to mention the food, pre- sumably required to boost a much-evaporated quota of calories. Two potatoes in a glutinous pool of gravy is common. And a curious soup, analysed as oatmeal simmered in water for some days, over which a bone is occasionally passed.
Unfortunately, because I have a rhesus negative blood complication, I shall have to have my second baby (recently launched) in hospital as well. It is an experience every fibre of me dreads.
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