![]() ![]() Historian Mary Melcher recounts the story of one woman who hemorrhaged throughout her pregnancy due to an unrepaired laceration from “a previous confinement” both mother and infant died. She delivered the baby, cut and tied the cord, cared for her infant, and “did all of her own cooking and housework until her husband arrived with help two days later.” She and the baby survived but she was too weak to work for the next six months. One woman recalled that she and her husband “had planned to have a physician, but the snow was so bad it was impossible to send for him.” One nineteen-year-old mother gave birth alone while her husband was away seeking help. The vast majority of rural Montana women had no prenatal care, and while many tried to arrange for professional care at the time of delivery, plans could, and did, fall through. because in emergencies their neighbors called upon them and they could not refuse to go.” Department of Labor, described the “inaccessibility of medical care in confinement” as her “most striking finding.” Working in an area roughly the size of the state of Connecticut, Paradise noted that there was no hospital and only three registered physicians, although “two or three others, not registered,” had been “drawn into practice. Paradise, who conducted her survey for the Children’s Bureau of the U.S. Women in remote areas also had trouble finding qualified physicians or midwives. Fortunately, she “recovered after a visit to the doctor.” Hazel Dorr of Eaton, Montana, recalled being kicked in the stomach by a cow during her pregnancy. The economic realities meant that rural women had limited access to prenatal care and education and had to continue to work no matter their condition. ![]() Several factors contributed to the high risk of pregnancy. A 1927 report found that “in Montana the infant mortality rate among Native Americans was 185.4, compared to only 69.1 for whites.” Maternity supporters such as this one from around 1920 helped support a pregnant woman’s belly, making it easier her to continue with her regular work. For Native Americans, the statistics were even more grim. Vanessa Paradise, the author of a 1917 survey of an eastern county, found that, compared with other rural states, Montana had a “very bad record of maternal losses.” Two years later, according to historian Dawn Nickel, the state was in the “ ‘unenviable position’ of having the highest reported infant mortality rate” in the Northwest. Maternal and infant mortality in the state were serious problems in the first decades of the twentieth century, especially among rural women. Remoteness, harsh weather, poverty, and cultural taboos against openly discussing pregnancy made childbirth unusually hazardous in Montana. ![]() ![]() Women, especially rural homesteaders in eastern and central Montana, often lacked access to reliable care and information. But because of economic, cultural, and demographic circumstances, pregnancy and childbirth could also present great risks. Courtesy Overholser Historical Research Center, Fort Bentonįor women in the early twentieth century, pregnancy and childbirth were natural facts of life. Pictured here in 1919 are May and Clara Overman, with their mother. Fort Benton area midwife Mary Kassmeier kept an album of the children she delivered from the 1910s through the 1930s. ![]()
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