A Child With No Name

Birth control has been around since the acient Egyptians, according to what I found online. I won't share the details, but you can look it up at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_control

And here's an article from Yale-New Haven about it: http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1982/6/82.06.03.x.html

Thanks for those links. The info is really, but really interesting.

Vanesa.

It fascinates me because I think of contraception as a modern-day thing.

amyk wrote:

I can understand Laura blaming Doctor Baker, because she was grieving, but I find it hard to believe the town would turn on him the way they did. I think that is the thing that makes this episode a little over the top. And yes, why would Harriet take Laura's side and turn on Doc Baker? That seems odd to me.

Quote :

The one thing that irks me about this episode is how seemingly ready Laura and Almanzo are to try to have another child. Up until that night when Doc Baker told them Rose would be okay, Laura was still very filled with anger and grief. When did this conversation take place? How could she be ready to think of having another baby with the passing of her son so recent? While it made for a great ending, I think we could have just had Laura apologize without acting all giddy and saying they were thinking of having another baby.

Did people back then even have any kind of family planning? I would just assume that they would not have to "think of having another baby" and that they would just accept any babies that came along without having to do any specific "thinking" about having one or not.

was thinking the same.seemed so odd and un like the town would be

Soo sad this one...Laura sure felt terrible...

In fact, people planned if they wanted more children or not. I remember people reading people discussing it even at XVI century. However, since the ways of controlling those births was not so easy as it is nowadays, a baby could be born even if people didn't planned it.

I don't know if this would be censured as "mature content", but I've seen English cartoons in which you could notice condoms and researchers also discovered condoms even in ancient Egyptian tombs.

Women also used to perform some kind of intime baths with vinegar in order of not having children.

Vanesa.

[quote="Gin"] Cheryl...I have wondered that too...especially in among all the "saloon girls." Did THEY do something to prevent a pregnancy??[/q

Actually birth control has been around since the beginning of time.
And there were people that did know how to terminate pregnancies.......unfortunately infections were common afterwards.

I often have wondered if , after Almanzo was stricken with polio if he lost the ability to father more children......just a thought

Well, they did have male birth control in the 1800's and women had ways they felt helped prevent it. Some women were just not very fertile and some, as my great grandparents told, just didn't have sex when you didn't want another mouth to feed.
Some men, although immoral, would visit the "town ladies" and they sometimes were more educated on how to prevent pregnancy but not always.
I remember in a quick google years ago, being shocked at some of the things women did for preventing or getting rid of a baby, not talked about openly, but still done by some in that time period and before. Some were silly, some worked but could be dangerous, some were primitive versions of things we have now.

Not a realistic episode at all. Although sudden infant death syndrome would not have been understood back then, babies still died and without showing any signs of illness.

The entire town (almost) would not have been so against Dr. Baker.

I wish Laura hadn't been so harsh with Dr. Baker, but I understood where she was coming from.  She needed somebody to blame and it was easy to blame him since he laughed about Laura and Almanzo bringing the baby in for a check up three times before he was a week old.  He also said that the baby was as healthy a baby boy as he had ever seen.  

I don't know how realistic most of the town turning against Dr. Baker after all those years was, but Laura probably told them off screen that Dr. Baker practically laughed her out of his office when she voiced concerns about her baby boy due to what happened with her baby brother. There is also the fact that Charles was no longer in town to talk sense into people since he was often the voice of reason when people in town acted rashly and unfairly.

I also understood why Mrs. Oleson sided with Laura.  While it wasn't normal for her to side with Laura, it was normal for her to be nasty to and vilify any of the townspeople that she thought made a mistake, whether it was the Ingalls, Dr. Baker, Reverend Alden, Mr. Edwards or countless others.  Since Laura was acting like Harriet in the way she treated Dr. Baker, it was easy for Harriet to side with Laura and direct her wrath towards Dr. Baker.

I'm glad Laura was able to forgive and apologize to Dr. Baker in the end.

I just finished watching this one. While I like a lot about it, I just find it too far-fetched that the whole community would turn against Doc Baker to such an extent that he would feel he needs to leave town. For one thing, we do see that Nels and Revd. Alden, and even Almanzo, have not really turned against the doctor. And would John and Sarah Carter have turned against him? What are people doing that Doc has no patients now (and he acts like that is abnormal)? Are they all going to Sleepy Eye? Or just not having a doctor treat them?

And it also seems strange to me that Laura would even act as though Doc Baker had anything to do with her child's death....it was not like Doc was treating him for some illness and he died. Was it that we were supposed to think Laura believed Doc missed something with all the exams she and Almanzo were taking the baby to him for?

But even though Laura was lashing out in anger due to her grief, it just seems beyond belief to me that the whole rest of the town would join in with her, or at least that enough of them would join her to the point that Doc's only patient was a mule. As for Harriet taking Laura's side, maybe if we learned that she had lost a baby due to some doctor's mistake, that could have been interesting. That would have made it more believable to me that Harriet may have still been dealing with some hidden grief of her own and would have made Harriet a bit more of a sympathetic character in this episode.

I also find it odd that when Laura discovered the baby dead (but apparently did not know for sure that he was dead), instead of picking him up and trying to do something she backed away. Perhaps she already knew he was dead, even though she yelled to Almanzo that something was wrong with the baby. Also, when Rose got sick, couldn't Almanzo tell that she had a high fever? Laura had to announce that after taking Rose from Almanzo. I do like that Almanzo did take charge and go get Doc Baker.

And I like Revd. Alden's speech about Doc Baker in the church service, although I don't know why he would not use Doc's name. I also think he should first have gone and talked to Laura and tried to counsel her some. Her issue was actually an emotional one and I do think that it was Revd. Alden's place, as her pastor, to offer counsel and even to help mend the rift between her and Doc Baker, since they are both members of his church.

amyk wrote:

I just finished watching this one. While I like a lot about it, I just find it too far-fetched that the whole community would turn against Doc Baker to such an extent that he would feel he needs to leave town. For one thing, we do see that Nels and Revd. Alden, and even Almanzo, have not really turned against the doctor. And would John and Sarah Carter have turned against him? What are people doing that Doc has no patients now (and he acts like that is abnormal)? Are they all going to Sleepy Eye? Or just not having a doctor treat them?

It seemed to me like Mrs. Oleson really stirred the pot in getting the people in the town to go against Doc Baker.

amyk wrote:

And it also seems strange to me that Laura would even act as though Doc Baker had anything to do with her child's death....it was not like Doc was treating him for some illness and he died. Was it that we were supposed to think Laura believed Doc missed something with all the exams she and Almanzo were taking the baby to him for?

I felt she really did blame him, since they kept taking the baby to him and he seemed fine, but then suddenly died. She even mentioned she was thinking about her baby brother, which made Doc Baker apologize to Laura for not realizing that.

amyk wrote:

And I like Revd. Alden's speech about Doc Baker in the church service, although I don't know why he would not use Doc's name. I also think he should first have gone and talked to Laura and tried to counsel her some. Her issue was actually an emotional one and I do think that it was Revd. Alden's place, as her pastor, to offer counsel and even to help mend the rift between her and Doc Baker, since they are both members of his church.

I also thought it odd that Reverend Alden didn't reach out to Laura.

I would actually have liked a scene with Revd. Alden and Laura. Other than the scene in THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD, I can't recall any scene where it was just the two of them having a conversation.