The Collaborative International Dictionary
Lying-in \Ly"ing-in"\, n.
The state attending, and consequent to, childbirth; confinement; as, a lying-in hospital.
The act of bearing a child.
Wiktionary
a. of, or relating to childbirth n. The final stages of pregnancy; accouchement.
WordNet
n. concluding state of pregnancy; from the onset of labor to the birth of a child; "she was in labor for six hours" [syn: parturiency, labor, labour, confinement, travail, childbed]
[also: lyings-in (pl)]
Wikipedia
Lying-in is an old childbirth practice involving a woman having a period of bed rest in the postpartum period after giving birth. Though the term is now usually defined as "the condition of a woman in the process of giving birth," it previously referred to a period of bed rest required even if there were no medical complications.
A 1932 publication refers to lying-in as ranging from 2 weeks to 2 months. It also does not suggest "Getting Up" (getting out of bed post-birth) for at least nine days and ideally for 20 days.
When lying-in was a more common term, it was used in the names of several hospitals, for example the General Lying-In Hospital in London.
Women received congratulatory visits from friends and family during the period, and among many traditional customs around the world the desco da parto was a special form of painted tray presented to the mother in Renaissance Florence. The many scenes after childbirth painted on these show female visitors bringing presents, received by the mother in bed, while other women tend to the baby. No fixed term of lying-in is recommended in Renaissance manuals on family life (unlike in some other cultures), but it appears from documentary records that the mother was rarely present at the baptism, in Italian cities usually held within a week of the birth at the local parish church, normally a few minutes walk from any house.
In art, the immensely popular scene of the Birth of Jesus technically shows the Virgin Mary, who reclines on a couch in most medieval examples, lying-in, but in famously un-ideal conditions. More ideal images of lying-in in well-off households are represented in the subjects, also popular, of the Birth of the Virgin and Birth of John the Baptist. These are generally given contemporary settings, and differ little from other images that are purely secular, especially those on desci da parto.
Usage examples of "lying-in".
Henderson, used to be about what a lying-in woman should have to eat and drink, and what care she took that she could catch no cold, and I thought I behoved to be as particular with Mrs.
He became chief of staff of the Boston Lying-in Hospital and was William Lambert Richardson Professor of Obstetrics at Harvard for a number of years.
Her Lying-in and Death--A Lettre de Cachet Obliges Me to Leave Paris in the Course of Twenty-four Hours All my friends seemed delighted to see me, and I was well pleased to find myself in such good company.
I give and bequeath the same, subject as hereinbefore stated, to the trustees, for the time being, of the Westminster Lying-in Hospital, in trust, for the purposes of that charitable institution.
Campbell quotes the case of a Polish woman, aged thirty-five, the mother of nine children, most of whom were stillborn, who conceived for the tenth time, the gestation being normal up to the lying-in period.
I made the oracle reply that she must sacrifice to the waterspirits on the banks of two rivers, at the same hour, and that afterwards the question of her lying-in would be resolved.
The oracle told her that she must go to Paris for her lying-in, and leave all her possessions to her son, who would not be a bastard, as Paralis promised that as soon as I got to London an English gentleman should be sent over to marry her.
Hosack, in which he refers to certain puerperal cases which proved fatal to several lying-in women, and in some of which the disease was supposed to be conveyed by the accoucheurs themselves.
The puerperal abscesses are also contagious, and may be communicated to healthy lying-in women by washing with the same sponge.
She was a dab hand at lying-ins, though I wasn't supposed to know such things.
Around the common will be the communal facilities: a bathhouse (daily bathing is usually compulsory), bakehouse (for breads and roasts), laundry, infirmary and lying-in clinic (with a trained nurse's aide and midwife), storehouse, and possibly a small church, mosque, or temple depending on the region.
The M'Choakumchild school was all fact, and the school of design was all fact, and the relations between master and man were all fact, and everything was fact between the lying-in hospital and the cemetery, and what you couldn't state in figures, or show to be purchaseable in the cheapest market and saleable in the dearest, was not, and never should be, world without end, Amen.
The M’Choakumchild school was all fact, and the school of design was all fact, and the relations between master and man were all fact, and everything was fact between the lying-in hospital and the cemetery, and what you couldn’t state in figures, or show to be purchaseable in the cheapest market and saleable in the dearest, was not, and never should be, world without end, Amen.