Obstetrical Supporter
date: label: patent date
content: 1849-04-24
notes: label: Description
content: Leather device with a label that reads in part “POLLARD & MINKLER’S / PATENT / Obstetrical Supporter.”
label: Description
content: The device was designed to assist women in labor. It consists of a back pad connected to woven straps that loop around each knee. Handles are attached to the straps where they loop around the knee. By pulling on these handles the patient can control the pressure and support provided. Smaller straps extend from the knee loops to loop around each foot. These straps keep the device from slipping off the knee when the patient pulls on the handles.
label: Description
content: The inventors claim several benefits for their device: "From the support it affords to the patient it increases the power of the voluntary muscles called into action in the mechanism of labor;" "Not only does it increase the power and efficiency of the pains, but from the support so well adapted and applied to the back it mitigates the severity of them to very great extent;" and, it allows the patient to "dispense entirely with the services of assistants, (except the nurse to take care of the mother and child after delivery,) the instrument having the power to give more and better support than all the assistants that could be gathered around her, relieving not only the patient in her suffering, but also the assistants from a great amount of toil, fatigue and labor, being not only exceedingly disagreeable, but many times dangerous to delicate females."
label: Description
content: Ref: Abiathar Pollard and Simeon Minkler, “Improvement in Obstetrical Supporters,” U.S. Patent 6,385 (April 24, 1849).
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
topic: label: Subject
content: Women's Health
label: Subject
content: Obstetrics
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Medicine
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1985.0793.01
label: accession number
content: 1985.0793
label: catalog number
content: 1985.0793.01
label: patent number
content: US6385A
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Supporter, Obstetrical
label: Object Name
content: supporter, obstetrical
label: Other Terms
content: Supporter, Obstetrical; Medicine
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 2 1/4 in x 16 in x 22 in; 5.715 cm x 40.64 cm x 55.88 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 2 3/8 in x 21 7/8 in x 16 in; 6.0325 cm x 55.5625 cm x 40.64 cm