POZNAŃ, ODOLANÓW, MIĘDZYCHÓD, MIĘDZYRZECZ, KOŚCIAN, BABIMOST, BEECH, WSCHOWA, KROBIA, KROTOSZYN, OBORNIKI, OSTRZESZÓW, PLESZEW, POZNAŃ, SZAMOTUŁY, ŚREM, ŚRODA, SEPTEMBER. - Master list of district midwives showing the amount that fell on each of them from the distribution of contributions collected from baptisms and weddings for the support of midwives, for the year 1825. Dz. Urz. Królewskiey Regencyi w Poznaniu no. 37/1826; st. bdb.
A public service of midwives was introduced in the Grand Duchy of Posen after the Napoleonic Wars. Counties were divided into midwifery districts served by a single midwife, one and all being decided by the administration. This was in line with the policy of the Prussian army, which was the only one with a completely dependent state. It was concerned with the conscription of recruits. In his case, it did not matter what Muttersprache he used, or whether he came from a right or wrong bed. He was to fight for the Prussian king as a soldier. In fact, the highly developed network of midwives was a kind of pregnancy police. Its scope went beyond delivering babies. She recorded every marital and extramarital pregnancy. She also reported on the illegal practice of aborting pregnancies, for which penalties were imposed, especially on so-called grandmothers. While these practices were not eliminated to zero, they were certainly reduced to a minimum. In the Kingdom of Poland, they were a common practice. The greater fertility rate in the Grand Duchy of Posen was in the Polish element. There was enough of it for the Polonization of cities, e.g. Ostrów Niemiecki became Ostrów Wielkopolski, but also for labor emigration to Berlin and Westphalia.
Listed are 162 midwives who received 16 reichstalars each and 14 who received 10 reichstalars for additional work in a district other than their own: the list of midwives is 7 pp. In addition, the document mentions a fire in the Jewish quarter in Szamotuly, which consumed 48 houses, with stables and barns, thus plunging 155 families, 35 Christian and 155 Jewish, into poverty.
