18th century, most people assumed that midwives had no formal training, even though some did, and common existing beliefs held that women were emotionally and intellectually incapable of learning and applying the new obstetric methods. Well-to-do families soon came to believe that physicians could provide better care than female midwives could and thus offered the best hope for a successful birth.
Mary Wollstonecraft met her end at the hands of a medical mystery that killed scores of 18th century mothers. Why?

Wollstonecraft’s death, following the birth of her daughter, the future Mary Shelley, was typical of the times in which she lived: “A part of her placenta needed to be pulled out by a doctor’s hand. She developed puerperal sepsis, an infection of the genital tract, which very painfully, and over the period of about a week, killed her.” These were the days of rampant puerperal, or childbed, fever, spread by doctors and midwives and a mystery to everyone.

“In the first half of the nineteenth century about five European women in a thousand died from childbirth. Death rates in maternity hospitals were often ten times that; the hospitals stayed open because doctors had an incurable faith in good intentions, and patients a poor grasp of mortality statistics. The physician and poet Oliver Wendell Holmes led the American campaign to stop the spread of the disease by getting doctors to wash their hands. Obstetricians felt slighted. ‘Doctors are gentlemen,’ said Charles Meigs of the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, arguing that no such care was needed, ‘and gentlemen’s hands are clean.’

CHILDBED FEVER

Ignaz Semmelweiss. As a 28-year-old assistant physician in the maternity unit of the Vienna General Hospital during the 1840s, Semmelweiss was given the responsibility of obstetrically examining ward patients, supervising difficult deliveries, and organizing teaching rounds both in the morgue and in the first section of the clinical ward, the section in which most deliveries were done by medical students. Semmelweiss immediately realized that the rate of puerperal (childbed) fever was much higher in his first section than in the second section of the maternity ward, where most of the deliveries were done by nurse-midwives. He also observed that the clinical symptoms of puerperal fever were identical to those of a hospital pathologist who died after pricking his finger with a dirty autopsy instrument.

Semmelweiss thus concluded that the disease was caused by “cadaverous particles” and other decaying organic matter transmitted to the patients in the first section by medical students who arrived on the maternity wards fresh from their dissection work in the morgue. He initiated the procedure of washing with a solution containing chlorine between all clinical activities, and the rate of puerperal fever appeared to decrease dramatically.

Unfortunately, Semmelweiss’s call for medical practice reforms became ensnared in the political upheavals that wracked Vienna and the hospital faculty in the late 1840s, and his work was rejected by many senior clinicians. Semmelweiss became increasingly more isolated in medical circles and answered his critics with a series of strident denunciations of the European medical establishment. With the permission of his family, he was involuntarily committed to an insane asylum and died (probably of untended wounds inflicted during a struggle) on 13 August 1865.

Considering that it wasn’t really until the 1840’s that doctors realized they had to scrub and wash their hands between patients, it’s not surprising that so many babies and mothers died! In fact, it was common during those times for doctors to attend autopsies of recently deceased people who had died from very contagious diseases and then to attend a birth without washing their hands!

more facts..

1800s more than 25,000 US women dying from childbirth-related problems each year – “walking under the shadow of maternity”, childbirth as “getting through your trial.” Death from maternity-related causes 65 times greater than in 1980s. Risk in each pregnancy about one in 150; figuring that women delivered five live babies during childbearing years, then one in every thirty women expected to die in childbirth.- “prevention of conception” “limitation of offspring” “preventives” “regulating reproduction” “limitation of the family” “regulators” “checks” “controlling the female system”.

- homemade or commercial douches – “female syringes,” “irrigators,” “injctions” “sanitative washes,” “purifying powders” “prevention powders” “defertilizing solution” “infecundating powders” and “anti-conception compounds.”;

- 1884 Kansas City Medical Record, “So common has the art become that we are safe in saying a respectable minority of the society ladies, while providing for their wedding, also provide themselves with a perfectly adjusted syringe, which is at once kept within reach.”

- 1832 book The Fruits of Philosophy by liberal doctor Charles Knowlton;

- condoms, ["baudruche", "French rubber goods,". "French male safes" "The French secret" "cundrums" "caps" "skins" "apex envelopes" "gentlemen’s protectors"]

- diaphragms ["womb veils," "female preventatives,’ "female protectors," "Victoria’s protectors" the "French pessary" or "FP"]

- sponges ["Mediterranean toilet sponges".]

  counter-attacks:

   – coitus interrruptus as cause of mental illness or even cancer

   – fear that physical devices (condoms, diaphragms, sponges) cause physical injury, nervous tension, or leave women sterile.

   – unnatural for women not to have children,

   – contraception encouraging promiscuity

“menstrual regulation,” “ladies’ relief,”, “curing irregularities” and “ridding oneself of an obstruction.”During 1800s, birth rate for white women fell almost by half, average number born to a white woman surviving to menopause dropped from 7.04 children in 1800 to 3.56 in 1900

wow what a change to what we can have on the NHS in the uk today we have come a long way since then a vast decrease in child mortality rates.Thanks to improvements. VISIT THE CHEEKYCHUMS PREMATURE BABY CLOTHES SUPERSTORE FOR ALL YOU NEED TO DRESS BABY IN THE TINEST OF SIZES AT HTTP://CHEEKYCHUMSONLINE.CO.UK

Qualified Baby and Early Years specialist.T.D.L.B D32+D33 Assessor.Owner of Cheeky Chums Cheeky Chums the Premature Baby Store, plus more For choices galore visit the cheeky chums store at http://cheekychumsonline.co.uk
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Eradicate Ants From Your Home – Permanently

Eradicate Ants From Your Home – Permanently – Only the unfortunate people who have experienced it will know the true  of winged ants in their homes.
Suffering an infestation of ordinary wingless ants is bad enough but when they go through their yearly mating  cycle the situation can become insufferable.
Ants often build colonies under the floors and in the wall cavities of our homes and these colonies will survive for many years if left untreated becoming progressively more intolerable each year.
Our homes are warm and dry and provide the ideal places for a thriving ant colony; even ‘solid’ concrete floor is permeable to an ant.
Our room heating systems maintains their metabolism even in winter  and my earliest ant call-out was on my birthday, in early January!
Ants prefer a sandy soil and there are many locations in Lancashire, Cheshire and Manchester which tend to suffer more ant infestationsthan others, Southport, Blackpool, Bolton, Sale & Altrincham leap to mind as hot ant spots.
Unfortunately it is during their mating cycle that they are most troublesome. Here in Lancashire, Cheshire and Manchester this tends to be fairlyoften  around the third or fourth week in July.
Ants mate on the wing and around mid-summer they produce winged immature Queens and winged males which in  a more natural environment would fly off and mate on the wing. Many thousands of these winged ants are produced per nest and nests tend to synchronise  their release so that they mate with ants produced by other nests.
Invariably this process starts after two or three days of warm, dry weather  and will usually go on for about a week although smaller releases will continue throughout most of June, July & August.
Unfortunately when the colony is hidden beneath the floor of the dwelling the results can be catastrophic, literally thousands of winged ants are released into the lower rooms, congregating on windows as they head for the light.
This can be extremely distressing for some people leading to extreme emotional trauma to the degree that people learn to hate the warm months of summer and have actually sold their homes to escape the invasion of ants which they know comes each year.
The wet summers of the last couple of years has meant that ant problems were down on previous years but appear to have a way of catching up and 2009 looks set to be a very busy year.
Most people who have this problem attempt DIY solutions with powders from hardware shops etc but usually these efforts are in vain as they are not getting to the heart of the problem which is the colony itself, hidden away in the cavity wall or sub-floor area.
Fortunately for many people the answer is at hand.
At Harrier Pest Control (subject to site survey) we are able to cure this problem and issue an extendable three year guarantee.

The procedure which is carried out mainly from the exterior of the property, is perfectly safe for animals and children and produces no smell, involves drilling small holes into the cavity walls of the property, not unlike a damp-course injection and injecting an insecticidal powder into the cavity under pressure.
This forms an impenetrable barrier across which the ants cannot go and together with a precautionary internal spray treatment (if appropriate) will gradually bring the infestation under control.
The holes, which are only 8mm in diameter remain open so it is a simply matter of re-injecting the cavities every three years to extend the effectiveness of the guarantee indefinitely.
This procedure is best carried out in the early spring although it can be done at any time of year.
As a limited time special offer before our busy period begins  we are offering 25% off the usual cost until April 30 2009. Whilst we usually cover the whole of Lancashire, Cheshire and Greater Manchester, we are prepared to travel further afield but this will increase the cost.
For a discussion or to arrange an appointment contact Harrier Pest Prevention on Free Phone 0800 019 8382 or

http://harrierpestprevention.com

Image via Wikipedia

Problems With Pigeons in Our Lancashire Towns – Ken Chadwick

Pigeons and doves are members of the Columbidae family and in nature live on cliff faces and rocky places.

The high buildings in we live and work make wonderful artificial ‘rock faces’ and hence our towns and cities are frequently infested with high pigeon populations fouling walkways, motor vehicles and statues.

Frequently this problem is heightened by kind-hearted but misguided individuals feeding the birds.

However it is when these birds gain access into a roof void or upper floor of a building that the real problems begin.

Often pigeons will find a broken window or dislodged slate in the upper and often unused areas of tall buildings.

They rear the young ‘squabs’ usually only one or two per nest on a diet of various seeds and city detritus that they easily find on our busy streets.

There can be many nests in a typical roof void and a build-up of pigeon guano swiftly collects, sometimes over a foot in depth on a long standing infestation.

This pigeon dung itself is teeming with wildlife, yellow mealworm beetle, larder beetle, spider beetle and their associated larvae.

Often the first hint of a problem is when these insects start to migrate into the occupied areas of the building.

On no account should amateur attempts be made to remove this guano, breathing in the dust of pigeon droppings is associated with various respiratory disorders including ornithosis and specialist equipment is needed.

The solution to the problem is of course to prevent them from gaining ingress by sealing all holes and repairing broken windows.

However this does not prevent them from roosting and occasionally even nesting on window ledges and fouling the masonry and walkways below which can become dangerously slippery due to their droppings in wet weather.

The solution to this problem is to apply pigeon spikes onto the ledges.

These are a pigeon deterrent and do not harm the birds in any way but make the ledges uncomfortable for them to land on and they move elsewhere.

Sometimes the only solution is to remove the flock and humanely dispose of them.

This can be achieved by shooting, although this is rarely practical in a busy city environment, or trapping the flock.

Trapping involves pre-baiting of an area until the birds are habituated in feeding there and then setting cage traps to collect the birds.

This is often an emotive procedure and is best done on flat roof-tops etc where the public cannot see the traps.

For help and assistance with your pigeon or general bird problems ring Harrier Pest Prevention on 0800 019 8382.

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