Preparedness for when

moneyistooshorttomention

Softstuff wrote: »

I'm back and seemingly all well. I'm enjoying the benefits of pain relief that's on the restricted drugs list - normal people would say beware if I post any nonsense, I'll say instead that I may actually make sense right now!

It occurs to me, that if the proverbial really hit the fan, it would be sensible to have already had any outstanding surgery done. Well worth it in my mind particularly for couples who are not having kids or who have completed their family to look at permanent solutions for birth control. After all, look at the expiry dates on forms of birth control and wonder what you'd do after that if we really were in desperate times. And heck, a bit of nookie might be the best entertainment going at that point :rotfl:

Very true Softstuff:rotfl:

I remember, back in THOSE days (ie pre-menopause) thinking "Well that's one thing I can have however often I decide, with no risk at all. One of the pleasures of life totally free".

I was always very conscious that, without modern medical science, there would only have been one other option on the table, ie live the life of a nun until I'd safely gone a couple of years post-menopause (by which time I might have lost all interest in it and/or found that I couldn't come across any fanciable men in my agegroup anyway).

In the event, I was dead right on both the losing interest bit and the no-fanciable-men-in-my-age-group bit:rotfl::rotfl::(:rotfl::rotfl:but I wouldn't have fancied the thought of years of thinking "I've decided to...nope...whoops I cant courtesy of 'lacking modern medical science' to set me free to do so. Oh well....better take up knitting instead...."

I've often felt very sorry for women who were "expected" to have sex (ie because they were married) back in pre-modern medical science era and the fact of just how many children some of them had (despite clearly not doing their health any good and them obviously not being able to afford them). It must have meant a lot of women "giving in against their will" to the (shall we call them "less considerate") type of husband and longing to stick some bromide in his tea so he would cut out the pressurising for what he had been told he obviously couldn't have just in case...but he was too selfish/useless at money management to listen.

EDIT: I've read one or two of those biographies by women from poor families and mentioning things like their own mother telling them (in pretty forceful terms by the sound of it - at least with some of them) to deliberately get perfectly normal teeth taken out before marriage just in case. Each time it provoked the reaction of "Why didn't they tell their mothers just where to get off?", but maybe these women who got pressurised into that had genuinely been conned into believing it really was necessary? and hadn't enough knowledge of how wealthier women lived and that THEY didn't do that (ie so therefore it obviously wasn't necessary at all). I presume there were some firm-minded poorer women who turned round to their mothers (or whoever else it was that was trying to pressurise/con them into it) and say "Phoebe St James up at The Manor isn't going to have it done, so therefore I wont be either"?

RAS

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

I've read one or two of those biographies by women from poor families and mentioning things like their own mother telling them (in pretty forceful terms by the sound of it - at least with some of them) to deliberately get perfectly normal teeth taken out before marriage just in case. Each time it provoked the reaction of "Why didn't they tell their mothers just where to get off?", but maybe these women who got pressurised into that had genuinely been conned into believing it really was necessary? and hadn't enough knowledge of how wealthier women lived and that THEY didn't do that (ie so therefore it obviously wasn't necessary at all). I presume there were some firm-minded poorer women who turned round to their mothers (or whoever else it was that was trying to pressurise/con them into it) and say "Phoebe St James up at The Manor isn't going to have it done, so therefore I wont be either"?

One of the things we pay for in the NHS is free dental care for pregnant women because carrying a child to term reduces bone mass and encourages dental decay (the developing child needs more calcium then the mother can provide from her diet).

Which is not so bad in our modern world of cheap plentiful milk and other dairy products.

Even now having frequent children can lead to reduced bone density with the attendent problems of stress fractures etc.

Because a child-bearing woman's dental problmes were likely to be severe, families would pay for her to have them all out either as a 21st birthday present or a wedding present. That avoided a lot of pain later in life when she could not afford treatment. It was still common up to about 1950.

calicocat

RAS wrote: »

One of the things we pay for in the NHS is free dental care for pregnant women because carrying a child to term reduces bone mass and encourages dental decay (the developing child needs more calcium then the mother can provide from her diet).

Which is not so bad in our modern world of cheap plentiful milk and other dairy products.

Even now having frequent children can lead to reduced bone density with the attendent problems of stress fractures etc.

Because a child-bearing woman's dental problmes were likely to be severe, families would pay for her to have them all out either as a 21st birthday present or a wedding present. That avoided a lot of pain later in life when she could not afford treatment. It was still common up to about 1950.

I didn't know that women used to have them all removed! ....interesting....if not scary.

I used to work with a woman who lost all her teeth when she was pregnant...literally all of them. :eek:

moneyistooshorttomention

I've got an idea that an aunt of mine might have had that done (she would now be over 100 if still alive) and I found that very difficult to understand because my maternal grandparents were pretty comfortably off from what I can make out. My own mother is about 18 years younger and things were a lot poorer for her than they had been for her older sister, so I don't know whether things had started to change by then or my mother was more stubborn (hence she still basically has all her own teeth).

moneyistooshorttomention

RAS wrote: »

Because a child-bearing woman's dental problmes were likely to be severe, families would pay for her to have them all out either as a 21st birthday present or a wedding present. That avoided a lot of pain later in life when she could not afford treatment. It was still common up to about 1950.

The first thing that strikes me there is to wonder when "Positive Thinking/Visualise what you want and it will be so" thinking became commonplace and how many people think like that these days. Wondering whether any of these women thought "no...it isn't WHEN....its IF"??

Am guessing "positive thinking" your way to your desired life as a way of thinking might have come over here from America in the 1960s or 1970s??

Own view on Positive Thinking = it certainly does work to some extent and "must try harder", as I personally positive thought/visualised my way towards buying my first house when my income dictated that it simply wasn't possible unless I got married. I distinctly remember sitting there expectantly waiting for "the way to do so will emerge" against all logic and naysaying.

[Deleted User]

The removal of teeth before a young woman married was looked on as being helpful to her future husband and saving him major expense. It was part of the ethos of that period and also a time when there was a great deal more respect for parents from their children. I doubt that many dutiful daughters would have wilfully disobeyed a strong parent be it male or female as thy were considered the property of the parents, not people in their own right until they were 21. Even then they were mainly dependent on parents for their livelihood and it was the norm to live at home until marriage. Not so long ago either, my mum had all her teeth out and false ones in before she was 21 and she was born in 1920 so it's within living memory.

GreyQueen

My mother was 22 when she had me and lost all but 7 of her teeth during the pregnancy (the first of two). The remaining teeth were dotted at random around her mouth and had to be removed so that dentures could be fitted. Her MIL lost all her teeth to gum disease in her late teens (she had her two children by the age of 19).

I've had no pregnancies and still have all my own teeth bar the wisdoms. Some of the back ones have been extensively remodelled by my dentist and are probably 70% non-original, but they do the job.

I have one gold crown and one gold filling, both well back in my mouth and not normally visible to bystanders. If the economy gets very bad, I shall be sure to keep the gold well hidden.:rotfl:

maryb

My mother also lost most of her teeth during her pregnancies in the 1940s and 1950s even though she was Irish and grew up guzzling milk. She also got extra milk under rationing. So it wasn't lack of calcium that caused her to be so badly affected. It's probably to do with the lack of antibiotics - she used to get abcesses and the only way to cure them pre antibiotics was to pull the tooth so they could drain the abcess.

So many minor things had much greater significance pre antibiotics. You never see children with styes anymore or big boils on nose or neck

thriftwizard

Well, I've had 4 pregnancies, resulting in 5 offspring, and still have all my teeth bar one, capped some years back, but originally cracked in a lacrosse "accident" in my teens (there are no accidents in lacrosse, just pure viciousness) and haven't indulged in milk willingly since I was about 7. On doctor's orders I had my bone density scanned about 5 years ago, as she thought they'd be made of lace by now, but the results were excellent; I eat lots of leafy green veg & pulses & clearly have no trouble extracting calcium from those.

So I do feel rather sorry for all those obedient girls who had their gnashers removed in case of disaster that most likely never would have happened, given a halfway decent diet, which I do realise some of them won't have had. Can't help thinking it's one of those things, like, say, foot-binding, that society imposed on otherwise healthy females - and it nearly always is females. Might have been better to spend the money on a lifelong supply of cabbage seeds...

nuatha

Softstuff wrote: »

It used to be that people would undertake various surgeries prophylactically (appendix, tonsils, heck, even teeth out) as far as I know. Doctors now are certainly a bit more conservative with some of those now.

Interestingly, should there be any ladies contemplating sterilisation as a procedure (forgive me at this stage if I've said this before), tubal ligation has apparently between a 1 in 400 and 1 in 200 failure rate (depending on the study you look at). I don't like those odds. Removing the tubes themselves, whilst being a slightly larger surgery, removes the possibility entirely, whilst at the same time drastically reducing the risk of certain forms of ovarian cancer (the deadlier kinds apparently originate in the tubes, not the ovaries).

Food for thought and certainly something to discuss with a doctor if anyone is contemplating such a thing. Though I realise that this may be a little more out there for some.

A friend had a tubal tie and burn after her first child, a partial hysterectomy after her second and a full hysterectomy after her third.
Having walked around for 3-4 days after my appendix burst (it was peritonitis and gangrene that floored me) I can fully understand having the appendix removed as a precaution.

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

The removal of teeth before a young woman married was looked on as being helpful to her future husband and saving him major expense. It was part of the ethos of that period and also a time when there was a great deal more respect for parents from their children. I doubt that many dutiful daughters would have wilfully disobeyed a strong parent be it male or female as thy were considered the property of the parents, not people in their own right until they were 21. Even then they were mainly dependent on parents for their livelihood and it was the norm to live at home until marriage. Not so long ago either, my mum had all her teeth out and false ones in before she was 21 and she was born in 1920 so it's within living memory.

Even more recent, my Dad had all his teeth removed as a twenty first birthday present (1960) as did a fair number of his peers. Generally it was regarded as saving a lot of pain and expense in the future. (There have been times when I wished I'd followed his example)