Preface from the Editors

Abstract

It’s 1659. A woman in Boston, Massachusetts is in labour. She rushes to get out her birthing linens and sets up her birthing room. Her husband ventures out to collect the midwife and the neighbouring women. She proceeds to have her child with the care and coaching of the midwife and neighbourly women at the bedside, while her husband waits anxiously outside. He might fetch a minister and go pray for her during her ‘travail’.