Mother and Child Were Saved: The Memoirs (1693-1740) of the Frisian Midwife Catharina Schrader

A very short book, "Mother and Child were Saved" features a translation of the memoirs that Frisian midwife, Catharina Schrader had written in the late 17th and the early 18th centuries. These were extracted from her notes that documented almost 3000 deliveries over the course of Schrader's career as a midwife. The memoir, exhibited around 100 of the most complicated that Schrader had helped with. These included both mother and child who had died, some where only the child died, some where one of a set of multiples lived, some where both lived happily. Though the essays and the introduction focus on the medical aspects of Schrader's career. The social aspect as a female midwife in a period of medicalized transition cannot be overlooked. One can see the burgeoning reticence emanate even from Schrader herself towards midwives who were incompetent and merely "tortured" their patients. However, this Memoir is integral for any study of midwifery in Europe during the early modern period. While the introductory essays could have been expanded to consider the social consequences of gender and midwifery, the fact that the Memoirs have been translated from their mix of three languages (Dutch, German and Frisian) into one ubiquitous language: English, gives the modern historian greater access to a primary source that details the travails and tribulations that women faced during this period that did not have the same kind of prenatal care that women see today. Ultimately, women faced with every birth, the possibility that they could die, and this memoir shows that there was a marked response to do anything they could to prevent that on the part of midwives and other obstetrical practitioners during this period. Regardless with the lack of exploration into the issues surrounding gender or the views of conception or any other number of paths that the essayists at the beginning could have explored, this work should be read by any historian that is considering gender in the early modern period.