article_snippet: When her labour began, her labour was often her husband
article_snippet: ’s job to fetch her labour.
article_snippet: Seventeenth century women often expressed a complex relationship with the pain of labour.
article_snippet: In 1672, physician Percival Willughby wrote Observations in Midwifery, a book about contemporary labour practices.
article_snippet: physician Percival Willughby wrote: 'Let all midwives bee assured, that it is not all midwives bee labours, in pulling, and haling all midwives bee women
article_snippet: ’s bodies, that causeth deliver.
article_snippet: But that it is the work of Dame nature.'
article_snippet: Remarking on one case, physician Percival Willughby wrote: 'Her mother-in-law was a midwife, and had used Her mother-in-law very harshly; through Her mother-in-law unhandsome doings, Her mother-in-law body was much bruised, and, by Her mother-in-law pulling the infant by the arme, shee had destroyed the infants life...'