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A lamb is the one of the
symbols for a child's grave |
September
is Infant Mortality Awareness Month and an appropriate time to explore the
tombstones of infants and children.
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| Cherubs mark childrens' graves |
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| Child 'sleeping' |
I
love going to the cemetery, strolling, thinking, taking photos. But when I come across a stone marking
the death of a young child, a baby, or an infant, the colors of life, in that
moment, seem to drain a bit. In
the twenty-first century, it seems so wrong for a person to die young, but before
the mid-twentieth century, it was common. In fact, the farther back in time you go, the more it was to
be expected.
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Three Lambs indicate that
3 children are buried here |
Mortality
rates for children, those ten and under, have always been high. No matter what a parents social
standing, children died due to infections, disease and poor nutrition. Poor prenatal and postnatal care were
also factors. Not until the last
twenty years of the nineteenth century, did scientists and doctors even begin
to understand what caused certain illnesses and how they were spread.
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| Lamb in shell for protection |
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| Born and died same day |
From
Colonial times to the latter 1800’s, 25 to 30% of white infants would not
survive their first year. The rate
for black babies was around 35%.
Probability and expectancy was high that a typical family would loose at
least one infant during its first 12 months.
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| Mother and 3 children |
 |
George lived almost 4 months.
His mother also died. |
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Two children
from one family |
Early pioneer women
had a child approximately every 26 to 30 months. According to the Indiana Historical Society, “
Over sixty
percent had six to nine children, thirty percent had ten or more, and only ten
percent gave birth to less than six children in their lifetime. According to
1840 census figures, women in Hamilton County, Indiana had an average of eight
children during their lifetime.”
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Mother and baby
floating on cloud |
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Mother portrayed as an angel
carrying her baby away |
During
that time, mothers fared little better.
Puerperal fever, an infection of the uterus, usually contracted after
delivery and caused by doctors and midwives not washing their hands, was the
main cause of death during childbirth in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries. Breech births also
added to the toll, compromising mother and infant. A breech birth sometimes led
to unstoppable bleeding in the mother and suffocation of the baby.
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Four lambs signify the deaths
of four children |
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Child who died before
leading infant to heaven |
Living
conditions in the U.S. inner cities were terrible and also contributed to high
infant mortality rates. Poverty
brought on unclean living conditions, a lack of sanitation, and the quick
spread of disease from one to another.
All of these conditions made inner city infant mortality rates around
30%. It took a better understanding of what roles sanitation and prenatal
health played in order to enact such regulations as the 1897 New York law
mandating that children be vaccinated against smallpox.
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| Infant daughter |
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| Infant son |
It's interesting to note that many infants were not named when they were
born. Some were not given a name
until they had reached that crucial first birthday. If a baby died during the first few days of life, it was
probably not named. There are many
stones in the cemetery, which are only identified as “Infant,” or “Baby.” Many times gender was not indicated. Parents and family members simply
referred to the infant as he or she, waiting to see if it would survive. The longer an infant survived, the more
likely it went through the naming and baptism ceremonies. Although this seems cold by today’s
standards, it could be argued that by not naming an infant, whose rate of
survival was only 70 to 75%, parents and family members were able to remain
somewhat detached, finding a coping mechanism of sorts, in the lose of so many
children in one family.
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| Only a first name |
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| Only parents identified |
In
1900, the rate of infant survival was still only 80% - with a 20% expectancy
that the infant would not make it to the age of 10. Once a child reached tens years of age, he or she still had
only a 60% chance to reach adulthood.
Causes remained the same, poor nutrition, infectious diseases and
sanitation. Once doctors
understood what caused cholera, small pox, scarlet fever, tuberculosis,
whooping cough, diphtheria and polio, and how these diseases were spread, cures
were embarked upon.
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| Child's stone |
It
is amazing, and sobering, to realize how many families lost children from the
settling of this country, up to the mid-1900’s. And while we in the U.S., Canada, and Europe, have seen those
numbers drastically reduced within the past 60 years, other countries such
as Angola, Afghanistan and Nigeria continue to have
high infant mortality rates due to a lack of sanitation, poor nutrition and the
spread of infectious diseases. Let us hope it does not take another sixty years for changes to be made in those countries.
~
Joy
