My birth

[mare]

Lovely photos shared Pennines, we still had the tin bath hanging in the outside corrugated iron clad wash-house next door at grandmas, along with the copper and a newer full size tin bath and also a flushing loo to replace the long-drop down the garden path. That was all a newish addition when our house was built next door when I was a year old, she was in her mid 70's by then and just not long widowed. Her home was a  simple design, main room for living and dining with the warmth of the coal range and a bedroom either side of that, plus a small scullery at the back entrance.

The thread had me thinking when just a few posts old that it hadn't occurred to me re cost of birth, as others have said. I did look up for NZ and by the late 1930s free maternity care was available at public hospitals, private hospitals subsidised and independent midwives could deliver babies in private homes.
My siblings, early 1940s to mid 1950s were all born in maternity homes a few suburbs from where we lived, though in between and the odd one out I was born in the home of a midwife closer to home, our area was semi rural then. Mum spoke a little about each but not the cost and know she went back to a maternity home after me as it was new and closer than the older ones. My midwife was the wife of a fisherman and lived by the beach, mum said she was given fish for breakfast, lunch and dinner her whole confinement.

I still live closer to where I was born and grew up than the nearest hospital available when our children were born, like TotH I had an emergency caesarean for the first and then in hospital 16 days and so that would have added up in costs but all part of free maternity care.

Mum and her 4 siblings 1914-1920 must have all been born at home with a local midwife I think but don't recall it being discussed, same location as my family but less populated then.

[brigidmac]

Thanks for starting this topic and on the subject of photos who are the gorgeous youngsters on your profile pics mare &
Treetotal
+ Your young ladies  BillyF
 & Maddy ( *I think I've asked before )

The baby in my profile is my late aunt Sylvia JONES who my nana walked home with in her arms from the hospital

[Pennines]

Oh Brigidmac - what a beautiful chubby baby! I wonder how heavy she was when your Nana had to carry her home from the hospital!

[coombs]

Love your shared photos Pennines. If you was born Jan 1945 you are just 4 months younger than my said uncle born Sep 1944 who had to have 2 doctors attend his birth at 3am. My uncle died in January 2020 aged 75 though after a long battle with cancer.

So glad I asked my nan about when her 4 children were born as my nan died herself 2 years later.

[Treetotal]

Thanks for starting this topic and on the subject of photos who are the gorgeous youngsters on your profile pics mare &
Treetotal
+ Your young ladies  BillyF
 & Maddy ( *I think I've asked before )

The baby in my profile is my late aunt Sylvia JONES who my nana walked home with in her arms from the hospital

It is my Aunt Betty, I think she was born in 1930.
Carol

[Treetotal]

This will be interesting to many...it brought a smile to my face

https://kidsofthe50sand60s.com/tag/baths/

Carol

[BumbleB]

AND a lot of memories!!!   

[Treetotal]

I'll say, at every meal when growing we always had to say "Grace" I often wondered why, Dad was an Agnostic and Mum a lapsed Roman Catholic 
At school, when it was home time, we had to sing:

At the end of the day,
Just kneel and say,
Thank you lord
For thy work and play,
I tried to be good,
for I know that I should,
That's my prayer for the end of the day!


I wonder if anyone else recognises it!

Carol

[Erato]

At least it was short and snappy.  We never said grace unless my grandfather was present, in which case he would be asked to say a few words and he would drone on for what seemed like ten or twelve minutes but was probably really only one or two.