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aethelfleds:
It’s always said that Jane Seymour died giving birth to Edward. Like baby Edward came out and oops she’s gone. I think we should stop portraying it like that because Jane really suffered so much longer. There’s a couple theories of what actually killed her, but whatever it was caused a horrific infection, probably blood poisoning, and delirium. And she lingered for TWO. WEEKS. It’s almost treated as a joke, like “yeah when Henry finally found a wife that gave him a son she died hahahaha.” But imagine the unspeakable pain and exhaustion she went through. In a lot of cases of maternal mortality at this time we don’t have much detail at all, but with Jane we have a bit more than usual. And I think that gives us a lot of insight into what pregnancy and childbirth was like for medieval/Tudor women. They endured not only labor with no pain relief, but the psychological effects of knowing they could very well die trying to bring their children into the world. And we just don’t acknowledge that? We never think about the physical and mental fortitude it took for our female ancestors to go through that. Just because it was considered their role in life or their dynastic duty doesn’t mean the humanity of women was invented with modern obstetrics.
Okay but here’s the thing. If Jane Seymour had given birth in a dirt hovel, her husband a pig farmer and her doctor the local midwife, she would have lived.
Why? Because the royal doctors, the most learned of the learned and the most wise of the wise, would have failed first grad human biology. They had no fucking clue what went on in human bodies, their information was gleaned from various greek texts that were completely wrong, but held up as gospel. They couldn’t even touch the queen directly because they would be disrespectful.
Meanwhile, your average village midwife couldn’t read and probably thought the four humors was some kind filthy foreign muck. But she became a midwife by training with other midwives on how to actually deliver babies.
What killed Jane Seymour? It’s not entirely clear but it’s generally accepted that her placenta didn’t detach and come out with the baby. It stayed inside her, rotted and she died of septicemia. The doctors all stood around wringing their hands and applying leeches, but if there was just one local midwife called, she’d have stuck her hand up Queenie’s vag and gotten whole lot out, and everyone would have been fine.
aethelfleds:
It’s always said that Jane Seymour died giving birth to Edward. Like baby Edward came out and oops she’s gone. I think we should stop portraying it like that because Jane really suffered so much longer. There’s a couple theories of what actually killed her, but whatever it was caused a horrific infection, probably blood poisoning, and delirium. And she lingered for TWO. WEEKS. It’s almost treated as a joke, like “yeah when Henry finally found a wife that gave him a son she died hahahaha.” But imagine the unspeakable pain and exhaustion she went through. In a lot of cases of maternal mortality at this time we don’t have much detail at all, but with Jane we have a bit more than usual. And I think that gives us a lot of insight into what pregnancy and childbirth was like for medieval/Tudor women. They endured not only labor with no pain relief, but the psychological effects of knowing they could very well die trying to bring their children into the world. And we just don’t acknowledge that? We never think about the physical and mental fortitude it took for our female ancestors to go through that. Just because it was considered their role in life or their dynastic duty doesn’t mean the humanity of women was invented with modern obstetrics.
Okay but here’s the thing. If Jane Seymour had given birth in a dirt hovel, her husband a pig farmer and her doctor the local midwife, she would have lived.
Why? Because the royal doctors, the most learned of the learned and the most wise of the wise, would have failed first grad human biology. They had no fucking clue what went on in human bodies, their information was gleaned from various greek texts that were completely wrong, but held up as gospel. They couldn’t even touch the queen directly because they would be disrespectful.
Meanwhile, your average village midwife couldn’t read and probably thought the four humors was some kind filthy foreign muck. But she became a midwife by training with other midwives on how to actually deliver babies.
What killed Jane Seymour? It’s not entirely clear but it’s generally accepted that her placenta didn’t detach and come out with the baby. It stayed inside her, rotted and she died of septicemia. The doctors all stood around wringing their hands and applying leeches, but if there was just one local midwife called, she’d have stuck her hand up Queenie’s vag and gotten whole lot out, and everyone would have been fine.
