accompaniment of pregnancy and childbirth for the mother, child or both. Bearing children, especially if complications set in, could be terrifying, dangerous and fatal.” It is estimated that one out of ten women died during labor and one out of three children would not reach the age of one. Man-midwives tended to be more aggressive in their attitude and techniques as opposed to midwives. They were the ones who used instruments (such as crotchets). Even experienced midwives, like Catharina Schrader, did not feel comfortable doing so and would delegate. The use of forceps was actually forbidden to midwives for they were not physicians: only the men could use them. The Frisian Midwife It was after the death of her first husband, Ernst Wilhelm Cramer, that Catharina Schrader started to practice midwifery, in 1693, in the villages around Hallum. Having six children to care for, she needed a way to financially support her family. Between 1695 and 1713, while living in Dokkum, she managed to build a large practice in a short amount of time, and she assisted in more than a hundred deliveries a year. After getting remarried, however, Catharina slowed down her practice. Articles suggest that this could be because her family was more financially stable thanks to her remarrying. During that time, she still continued to practice here and there, including for the deliveries of her daughters. After the death of her second husband, she picked it back up and remained quite active despite her old age. Her clientele covered all levels of society, and her pay depended on the patient’s social status. She usually got paid less than three guilders, but she could get paid up to fifty guilders although those were very rare instances. Her pay could also depend on her workload, because sometimes she would stay at the house of her patient for six weeks. For an average two-day labor she was paid about two guilders, which at that time was around the weekly wage of a skilled laborer. Between 1696 and 1712 she earned between two and three hundred guilders a year. Although, people sometimes did not pay, so she kept a page of creditors in her notebook. There were more births in July and August than in the rest of the year. In 1706 she attended 137 deliveries. As she got older and could not travel as much, most of the deliveries took