Just a bit of trivia I found fascinating....and disturbing
Nope, it was presecribed for morning sickness. And it worked for it too. It was earlier than he 1950's though I think, peaked in the 20's and 30's.
Certainly in Ireland, pain medication would not really have featured during delivery. The one where pregnant people were seen as frail would not be true for here either. Miscarriages and stillbirths were seen as a sad fact of life, women were told to get over it and try again. I don't think it would have merited any special treatment, no scans existed anyway. I am talking about deeply Catholic Ireland though back then, England could well have been different.
Definitely the points about smoking and drinking, fathers only seeing the baby through the nursery window, lonnnng bed rest and the other points are true. Don't think they definitively copped a link between drinking and pregnancy until the 70s and has only been widely known in the last 15 years or so. If anyone has seen the film The Snapper, shot in 1993, the pregnant woman in it binge drinks. They wouldn't have been told any different.