Before the 1970s, in the countryside of the Lixiahe region, whenever a pregnant woman gave birth, the host family had to invite an experienced midwife to deliver the baby at the mother's home. Midwives were called stable women in ancient times, and people in the Lixiahe area called them "old women".
At that time, before the Establishment of an Obstetrics and Gynecology Department at Shagou Hospital in the belly of the Lixia River, the women in the town were delivered by two old women. According to rough statistics, as of 2010, most of the births of people in Shagou Town from their 80s to 50 years old were delivered by them. The two old men are called Wang Song and Quan Song respectively, they are the younger sisters born of a mother, Ru Jian is already an elderly person in his 120s.
In the old days, the technique of delivery was usually passed on to one's daughter or daughter-in-law, and generally not to outsiders. The Song family had ancestral midwifery techniques, and Lady Song passed on this practice to her eldest daughter, the future Wang Song. When Wang Song was sixteen years old, she officially began to deliver babies, when she was still a big girl, although she was not married and had some shyness, but she was bold and meticulous, meticulous, and the midwifery technique became more and more skilled, becoming a master of delivery. The first choice for all people in the town who have a pregnant woman to give birth to is wang song to deliver. The sister Quan Song's midwifery is not as high as her sister, and can only be a supporting role as a hand handle, hugging the waist and washing the rough and dirty work are all undertaken by her. The sisters cooperated with tacit understanding and became famous for delivering babies in Shagou Town and surrounding villages.
The delivery tools used by the old brides were simple: a pair of scissors, a towel, and a washbasin. In this line of work, experience is often more important than technology. In the past, there were no examination instruments, and the situation in the abdomen of pregnant women could only be estimated by experience, and most of the famous old women were trained through years of delivery practice, and the same was true of Wang Songshi. Whether it's windy or rainy, day or night, as long as someone asks, she will always arrive on time. She usually first asked the host to burn two large pots of hot water, and did not allow men to enter. After the birth of the child, Grandma Zhu will help the newborn child to take a bath, after delivery, the host family will give her a new towel and a pound of brown sugar, if the birth is a boy, the 12th dynasty (the 12th day of birth), 100 days and the week of scratching, will invite her to sit at the table (dialect, that is, invite her to eat).
Wang Song has an ancestral trick to determine when the mother will give birth, other midwives are using the pulse method, and the Wang Song family uses finger art, that is, from the beating frequency of several fingers of the mother, it can be determined when the mother gives birth. If there is still a period of time for the mother to be born, she will comfort the mother not to be impatient, not to be nervous, if the mother is about to be in the basin, she will instruct the mother's family to prepare boiling water, stew cinnamon tea, prepare scissors, straw paper and other matters.
When the mother was about to give birth, the old woman instructed the mother's family to bring a basin of hot water and prepare for delivery. The old type of midwifery was vertical, half-kneeling, supine and sitting. Whenever Wang Song gently comforted the painful mother in a soft voice at this time, Quan Song hugged the mother's waist while helping her with words such as "holding her breath, working hard, and working harder". After the baby fell to the ground crying and croaking, the old woman quickly identified the gender and immediately informed the outside of the room. At this time, Wang Songshi cut and bandaged the umbilical cord with disinfected scissors, and sent the tire coat from the whole Song clan to the main family and buried it in the ground of the patio of the home, which is the origin of the saying "land of the clothes". After the delivery, the host family handed over a red envelope and brought steaming glutinous rice porridge to the old woman to eat, and expressed gratitude.
Delivery is a very risky industry, if the baby and the placenta are separated from the mother together, the mother and child are safe and all is well, the most feared thing is that the baby lands but the placenta has not yet come out, this situation is nine deaths, very dangerous. The biggest feature of wang song is that it is not chaotic in the face of danger, and it is not alarming to deal with changes, and when there is a pregnant woman who has a transgression, a reverse birth, and a partial birth, the Wang Song clan will use some adjustment surgery to turn the danger into a disaster. In the case of difficult mothers, Wang Song will tell the mother's family in advance, prepare the double boat, and send the mother to the xinghua city hospital to deal with it.
The Wang song sisters are not only good at midwifery, but also have good medical ethics. No matter when, what weather, as long as any mother is about to give birth, they will immediately rush to deliver the baby, often in the middle of the night or early in the morning to be woken up, or even braving heavy rain and snow to rush to other people's homes. When you arrive at the mother's home, you must always stay next to the mother, and stay away until the child is born. If you encounter difficult childbirth, you have to keep it for a few days and nights.
After liberation, the people's government attached great importance to the delivery of pregnant women, and in addition to actively organizing local health centers, it also promoted the new law on delivering babies. Before the establishment of the Obstetrics and Gynecology Department of Shagou Hospital, Wang Song's birth delivery point was compiled by the Xinghua County People's Government as the "Eighth Delivery Station of Xinghua County", with stamps and health boxes. The infant's account registration and planned oral issuance of certificates are all handled on the basis of the certificate issued by the birth attendant station.
With the passage of time, the industry of the old woman has gradually become people's memory, and few young people know what an old woman is, perhaps only in film and television dramas can they understand one or two.
Today the obstetrics and gynecology department of the hospital