Healing at Home: Midwifery, Domestic Medicine, and Infant Care

Domestic Medicine

The care of the ill and injured often fell to relatives and neighbors when physicians were difficult to find. Women most often filled this role, not only for immediate family, but also for extended family, servants, neighbors, and members of their religious congregations. The women of the house watched over the ill, sitting beside them, offering support and comfort, food, drink, and medicine. They relied on medical information found in domestic medicine books.

Midwifery

Female midwives attended births during the colonial and early republic periods, especially in rural areas. Childbirth was in the home and was a female communal event, supervised by a female midwife. Midwives sometimes helped with general nursing, pediatrics, and laying out the dead. In the latter half of the eighteenth century, male midwives trained at medical schools.

Infant Care

Infant mortality was very high, estimated to have been 40% during the revolutionary period. Often physicians were only called to treat babies and children if home remedies did not work. No pediatrics specialty existed at this time. In colonial America, children were under the care of women, and generally children would not be cared for by physicians until they were weaned.