Victorian Babies
- fiona flint books
- May 22
- 2 min read
Before I begin this brief note about the care of Victorian babies, it is worth underlining, I think, that there was no choice about motherhood at this time. Birth control literature was illegal and it was usual for a working class woman to be either pregnant or breast feeding from the time of her marriage until menopause.
Many children of working class mothers died before the age of five. The biggest cause of death was infant pneumonia but babies in over-crowded and damp housing were also at risk from diarrhoea and tuberculosis. It was no longer held that God took the children he wanted, now science prevailed. Mothers were held responsible for their children's deaths and judged on how many of their offspring survived.
Further, babies were viewed as clean slates or empty vessels, ready to “receive impressions” from the moment of their birth. They must not experience evils of the world which could leave a lasting effect. A mother should 'govern her feelings' because
"a mother’s influence should not interfere with the influence of angels"
according to 'The Mother’s Book' (1831) by Lydia Child.
The contaminating influence of criminal mothers upon their children was a major concern. Though a child born in prison would stay with its mother, sleeping in a cot in her cell, it would be taken to the day-nursery in the morning to be bathed, fed and put to bed again by somebody else. Depending on her conduct, a mother might see her baby at lunch or to take it to the prison yard with her. But, from 1900, the baby was removed from its mother at the age of nine months to spend the rest of her sentence in the workhouse.
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