Call the Midwife
Before the start of the National Health Service, expectant mothers went to Bond Street, Westcotes Maternity Home or the City General to have their babies, although many women saved money by having their babies at home. It cost 2 gns a week (£2 2s or £2.10) to stay two weeks at the Westcotes Maternity Home, which was well beyond the reach of many families. This improved from 1929/30 when the City General developed a maternity service.
While midwives were usually called on to help with births, in 1936, prior to the introduction of a Municipal Midwifery Scheme, health officials identified around 70 'handywomen' who had no official training but who were called on to help bring babies into the world and prepare the dead when they left.(1)
Midwives recall appalling conditions in the worst housing in Leicester. These conditions were a concern to the authories and a spur to the slum clearance programme that started in the 1930s. Having said this, mortality rates improved significantly between the wars although they were worse in the poor inner-city wards.
There was no sex education in schools and people's knowledge of 'the facts of life' could be very poor. This led to many unintended pregnancies and quickly arranged marriages or, distressingly, illegal abortions.
You can hear more by listening to EMOHA's online recordings, which include the full interview with Mrs Matthews, and compilations about Public Health and Women's Lives.
Sound clips for this page were created by Amirah Rashid & Dhriti Bardhan.
References
(1) Most of this information from ‘Leicester in the 20th Century’ by Nash & Reeder (1993) Chapter 4.