Childbed

[f. CHILD sb. + BED sb. Although instances are wanting, the literal sense 1 c is presumably the original.]

  1.  The state of a woman in labor; ‘confinement.’

c. 1200.  Trin. Coll. Hom., 47. On þre þinges . Þat on is childbed, and þat oðer chirchgang, and þe þridde þe offring.

1297.  R. Glouc. (1724), 379. ‘Þe kyng,’ he seyde, ‘of Engelond … lyþ myd hys gret wombe at Reyns a chyld bedde.’

c. 1440.  Gesta Rom., 237. She browte forthe a faire sone; but she dide in hir childebed.

1483.  Cath. Angl., 63. To ly in chilbed, decubere.

c. 1530.  Ld. Berners, Arth. Lyt. Bryt. (1814), 45. That Fenyce, hys quene, should lye a chyldbedde at the Port Noyre.

1654.  Trapp, Comm. Job xli. 30, 256. As for pillows, they said they were fit only for women in child-bed, &c.

1834.  Macaulay, Pitt, Ess. (1854), I. 304/1. Queens run far greater risk in childbed than private women.

  † b.  with plur. Obs.

1626.  T. H., trans. Caussin’s Holy Crt., 165. All her child-beddes are false conceptions, and her productions, abortions.

  c.  The bed in which a child is born. Also fig.

1594.  Southwell, M. Magd. Fun. Teares, 115. The nest where sinne was first hatched, may bee now the child-bed of grace and mercie.

1616.  Chapman, Homer’s Hymns, 38. Her childbed made the mountain Cynthian.

  † 2.  The womb. (Also child’s-bed.) Obs. exc. dial. Cf. bairn’s-bed s.v. BAIRN.

1535.  Coverdale, 2 Esdr. iv. 40. Yf hir childeszbed maye kepe y^e byrth eny longer within her.

1863.  Atkinson, Provinc. Danby, Childbed, the matrix or womb.

  3.  attrib. (in sense 1.)

1580.  Hollyband, Treas. Fr. Tong, Vne Accouchée & gisante, a childebed wife.

1611.  Shaks., Wint. T., III. ii. 104. The Child-bed priuiledge deny’d, which longs To Women of all fashion.

1710.  T. Fuller, Pharm. Extemp., 130. An wholesome Medicine for Child-bed Women.

1716.  Lond. Gaz., No. 5425/10. A Large Trunk containing Child-bed Linnen.

1836–9.  Dickens, Sk. Boz, vi. The great points about the Childbed-linen Monthly Loan Society.