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<font size=3>At 11:51 PM 7/9/2011, REMT wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">Today we are accustomed to
thinking of childbirth as nothing too serious as far as the mother's
physical condition is concerned. Until the fairly recent past,
however, it was treated much more seriously -- it's not so long ago that
the normal post-partum hospital stay was two weeks. It would not
surprise me if failing to light candles the first Shabbos after giving
birth was not a rarity, and the din mentions that missing a week calls
for lighting an extra candle for life. Is it too far a stretch to
assume that those places which adopted the hanhaga of an extra candle per
child did so k'de lo l'vayeish those who missed, by making it the
practice of everyone?</blockquote><br>
I was born in 1941, and my mother told me more than once that she was
confined to bed for a week after my birth. IIRC she said that she spent
another week after she was allowed to get out of bed in the
hospital. My bris was in the hospital. <br><br>
We tend to ignore the fact that there can be serious consequences for a
woman during and after childbirth, since we do not see this, B"H,
very often today. However, a neighbor of mine told me that his
friend's wife gave birth about 3 years ago and went into in coma.
She is still in a coma! She is a young woman, not more than 30 I
believe, and this was her second child. Her first delivery went
well. I have no more details.<br><br>
With this in mind and what happened after my youngest grandson was
born (See
"<a href="http://personal.stevens.edu/%7Ellevine/aaron_vunderkind.pdf">
Medical Drama: Why We Call Aaron a
</a><a href="http://personal.stevens.edu/%7Ellevine/aaron_vunderkind.pdf">
<i>Vunderkind</a></i>" <b>Inyan: </b>Hamodia Weekly Magazine,
June 15, 2011, pages 28 - 29.) we should all be cognizant of how
thankful we should be when we hear about a normal delivery of a healthy
baby. <br>
<x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
Yitzchok Levine</font></body>
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