You can hardly imagine how terrible an ancient woman was when she gave birth.
In an era when the sanitary environment and medical conditions are very backward, giving birth to a child is equivalent to going through the gates of death and suffering a "torture".
If you encounter dystocia, it is equivalent to a foot in the coffin.
The old midwifery method and ignorant and backward customs not only make the survival rate of newborns in ordinary people's families low, but also the golden branches and jade leaves in the royal family.
Birth of a man means going to heaven; To have a daughter is to go to hell.
The mural "Birth of Xianyang" in Chongyang Hall of Yongle Palace in the Yuan Dynasty
The central position is the delivery room. The delivery room is hung with curtains. The lying in woman lies on her side on the bed and stands in front of the bed
There are two other women in the room to bathe the newborn
1、 Dystocia
Yueqing County, Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province during the Ming Zhengde Period
A well-to-do family surnamed Zhang is anxiously waiting for the birth of the second child of the young master Zhang Zhicheng, or to be precise, the birth of the first boy.
At the moment, the puerpera Xianglian is sitting in a special delivery room and giving birth hard.
It was late, and in the flickering candlelight, people in the delivery room were busy.
The screams of the lying in women, the orders of the midwife, and the gurgling sound of the frying pot were mixed together.
On the hay mattress, the fragrant lotus hair buns are scattered, and the voice is hoarse. The legs are wide open, and the armpit tightly holds two sticks, which are tied by a rope hanging from the roof beam, and can be used as a support power point.
Sweat mixed with tears, she had already soaked her clothes and her puerperium.
A woman wearing red clothes and green pants, with pomegranate flowers on her bun, was busy commanding, and asked several women to hold Xianglian tightly.
This person is the local famous mother-in-law, Wang Ma. But Ma Wang was nervous that night, her face turned purple, and she kept taking out the yellow handkerchief at her waist to wipe away sweat.
As soon as Wang Ma saw Xianglian today, she faintly felt something was wrong, but she did not dare to say it. She kept calling Amitabha and Avalokitesvara to bless the woman with a smooth birth.
Since the noon of that day, Xianglian has not been born.
I drank four or five doses of oxytocic soup, but it didn't help, and it lasted until the evening.
It is reasonable that she gave birth to the first child before, and the second child would be much more successful, but this birth seemed to kill her.
Mother Wang kept shouting in her ear: "Breathe in! Breathe out! Use your usual position of submission!"
It's no use. Xianglian almost faints.
Wang Ma said hurriedly, "It's supposed to be a boy, so try hard!"
When Xianglian heard the word "boy", she immediately pulled herself together again, and her eyes lit up with pain and joy. If I can really have a boy this time, I will be able to stand up in front of my husband and mother-in-law and have a firm foothold in the family.
According to the normal delivery of Xianglian last time, it should be the stage of dilatation of uterine orifice, descent of fetal head and rupture of fetal membrane.
But Ma Wang found that despite all the twists and turns, uterine contractions were also very regular. Amniotic fluid just flowed out of the birth canal, and the baby was still standing on its head and feet in the womb.
Bad, bad luck! Wang Ma hurriedly put her hand into the birth canal to check, and her voice turned from small to big: "The birth is very dangerous. All Bodhisattvas, passing gods, bless peace, bless peace!"
In general, the baby's head should come out first. Those who produce first are called Hengsheng; The first foot is called Daosheng.
With many years of experience in delivering babies, Wang Ma found that Xianglian's baby was born upside down, that is, with her feet facing down.
In this situation, we can either turn the fetus around by means of instruments, or by means of a transfer operation, or by caesarean section. In short, it is not difficult.
But at that time, there was only one way to turn the fetus around, or one corpse with two lives.
The mother Wang was so worried that she gave a whining sound to frighten everyone in the delivery room. "Come here! Put her up for me!"
The crowd hurriedly pulled Xianglian up and held her to her standing position.
Xianglian, whose consciousness was drifting, was suddenly propped up. Her brain was a little clear, but she had no strength to speak.
I heard Mama Wang hurriedly say, "Young lady, your baby is not in the right position. Standing can make the baby come right. I guarantee that you are a boy, and I took over the baby standing is a boy! It depends on whether you can be beautiful for the rest of your life!"
When Xianglian heard this, her eyes suddenly lit up again, as if she had another breath. With the help of everyone, she grabbed the rope tied to the stick on the beam and stood still.
In the Dazu Stone Carvings in Chongqing, the stone carvings of the Southern Song Dynasty, the pregnant woman gave birth standing up, and the midwife squatting in front of the pregnant woman was tying clothes and rolling sleeves for delivery
Amniotic fluid and blood ran down her thighs onto the hay mattress. Mother Wang called out an energetic woman and pushed down Xianglian's belly desperately, trying to make the child turn inside.
Xianglian just felt black and almost fainted.
Just then, a meatball came out from the birth canal of Xianglian. When Wang Ma saw it, she shouted, "No, the child's hand came out. It's left handed. Bring the salt!"
The people were so scared that they listened to Wang Ma's words and quickly took the salt that had been prepared.
Mother Wang murmured, picked up a pinch of salt, and sprinkled it on her sticky hand, which was tightly clenched. A miraculous thing happened, and the little hand retracted itself!
Everyone saw that the belly of Xianglian was wriggling, and the child must have rolled over in it.
"The child turned around!" the crowd shouted.
But the child's head still didn't show.
When Wang Ma saw this, she stamped her foot and made a cruel move that was unimaginable.
You know, steady mother-in-law is one of the so-called "three aunts and six wives". Only the poor and brave women in low status families are willing to do this. Sometimes, they will cooperate with the government to check their virginity and autopsy. What scenes have you never seen?
I saw Mama Wang put her hand into the birth canal and tore the afterbirth of the fetus, that is, the placenta and fetal membrane.
Suddenly, amniotic fluid poured down.
Then, Ma Wang used her long and dirty fingernails to crack the perineum of Xianglian, so as to open a big way for the baby. She also put her hand deep into the birth canal, clenched her fist and stretched it.
This series of cruel actions are extremely rude. What she tore was human flesh!
How could Xianglian endure such pain? After repeatedly screaming, she passed out completely.
"Stop! Don't let her fall down!" Ma Wang shouted, and several women tried to stop Xianglian.
Ma Wang closed her mouth, stared, gave her arm up, reached out and pulled the baby out!
After the child came out, he was bloody and had several nail scratches on his head.
Wang Ma didn't care much about that. She quickly separated her clothes and bit off the umbilical cord, tied it up, cleaned the baby's mouth, and washed it in the bathtub.
The child burst into tears.
Wenpo is bathing her newborn baby
On this side, the lotus was also helped to the bed, and the person was still in a coma, but the placenta had not yet been delivered. Mother Wang asked someone to use hot vinegar to wake her up.
Xianglian is not conscious yet. She feels a sharp pain in her lower body. She is about to open her mouth and groan. Suddenly, she feels that her mouth is full of foreign matters, and she will vomit immediately.
It was Ma Wang who put Xianglian's hair into her mouth!
In such a vomit, Xianglian's body suddenly contracted, and a mass of blood and afterbirth slipped out of her lower body.
When Wang Ma saw this, she just took a breath, and then put a mass of medicine on the lower body of Xianglian.
Xianglian was now awake. She could not ignore the sharp pain in her lower body and asked weakly, "Is it a man or a woman?"
Wang Ma wiped her sweat, took the baby with a smile, and opened the swaddling cloth for Xianglian to see.
When Xianglian saw it clearly, she felt a little bit overwhelmed. It was over.
What kind of boy is this second child? It's also a "money loser"! Since then, my life has been more difficult.
There was a loud noise outside the door, and a man began to curse.
2、 Life and death
"Another unlucky loser! The third generation of our Zhang family's single biography is going to be destroyed by you! You are going to make our Zhang family unique!"
It was Zhang Zhicheng, Xianglian's husband, who was the man who had been guarding the delivery room for a whole day and was eager to jump and swear.
Hearing this, Wang Ma spat in the dark. It was really unlucky. After a busy day's work, she met a woman who gave birth to a baby girl. The bonus money she got would be pitiful.
However, she still has some money to earn, which is a "secret" that everyone in the Zhang family knows. Only Xianglian in the house is still in the dark.
Women are so lucky. Ma Wang sighed, took some silver coins and left.
Like the fate of many women, women who cannot give birth to boys are in a low position, and Xianglian is in a more miserable situation.
She had a fever every day because she was torn in the perineum and infected during childbirth, but her husband and mother-in-law ignored her and didn't treat her as a human being.
Only a little girl she brought from her mother's house, who was diligent in taking care of her every day, could make her turn the corner.
But something more worrisome happened. The baby began to get sick a few days after birth, and the tummy became bigger and bigger. First, I kept crying, and finally I stopped eating milk.
Xianglian begged her husband several times to ask the doctor to treat the child, but she was refused mercilessly.
Zhang Zhicheng, who was extremely gentle in front of the people, said viciously: "What can be done for such a loss? It's just clean after death!"
Until Xianglian knelt down, Zhang Zhicheng reluctantly sent someone to call the doctor.
After a diagnosis, it was known that the child had "umbilical cord wind", that is, neonatal tetanus, which is usually caused by the hands or tools used by the midwife who broke the umbilical cord without disinfection or disinfection is not tight.
With modern medical methods, it is not impossible to cure, but in the era without antibiotics, the death rate of this disease is extremely high.
Xianglian, who learned of her illness, was hit by a bolt from the blue, and the child died that night.
Zhang Zhicheng asked people to throw the dead baby into the "random burial post", without even a coffin.
Xianglian cried herself to death, but she could not help herself. She could only comfort herself: My child, you are a daughter's family, and you will suffer when you grow up. It's better to have a boy in the next life.
After this trouble, Xianglian was physically and mentally damaged and could not afford to fall ill. But she knew that having a boy was the only way out, and now she could only recuperate and get pregnant again.
What she didn't know was that the more sinister thing was still to come. Her husband and mother-in-law had already left behind. When Xianglian was pregnant with her second child, they plotted a foolproof plan with Wang Ma.
Then something unexpected happened to Xianglian.
The appearance of a woman destroyed all her plans.
