Justine Siegemundin
| Justine Siegemund | |
|---|---|
 Justine Siegemundin
| |
| Born | 26 December 1636 |
| Died | 10 November 1705 (aged 68) |
| Other names | Justine Dittrichs |
| Occupation | German writer |
Justine Siegemund or Siegemundin (26 December 1636 – 10 November 1705) was a renowned Silesian midwife whose Court Midwife (1690) was the more read, but not the first, female-published German obstetrical manual.
Strikingly, Siegemund herself was childless, which should have technically disqualified her from her profession, as only childbearing midwives were supposed to be able to practice. Had that been the case, however, seventeenth century Europe would have lost a consummate professional in her discipline.
She was born the daughter of Elias Diettrich, a Lutheran minister, in Rohnstock (now Roztoka), in former silesian Duchy of Jawor on December 26, 1636. Her father died in 1650, when she was aged fourteen. In 1655, she married Christian Siegemund, an accountant, but the marriage was childless. However, it lasted for forty-two years, and Christian Siegemund provided considerable support to his wife during her professional career, although they may have lived apart from 1673.
At twenty, Justine Siegemund suffered considerably at the hand of incompetent midwives who wrongly assumed that she was pregnant. Her experience motivated her to educate herself about obstetrics, and she practiced herself for the first time in 1659, when she was asked to assist a case of obstructed labour related to a misplaced infant arm. Until 1670, she provided free midwifery services to peasant and poor women in her local area, although she also gradually diversified her client base to include women from merchant and noble families.
Given her thriving midwife practice and expanding client base, Siegemund was called upon when a cervical tumour threatened Luise Duchess of Legnica, which she successfully removed, after male physicians called on her professional services. However, sexist professional animosities were never far away. In 1680, Martin Kerger, her former supervisor, turned on her and accused her of unsafe birthing practices. Unfortunately for Kerger, his own colleagues at the Frankfurt on Oder medical faculty sided with Siegemund instead, and it did not help that Kerger's own statements demonstrated that he lacked her practical experience-based professional knowledge of women's reproductive and infant anatomies and childbirth.
His groundless allegations did not affect Siegemund's professional employment opportunities, and in 1670 she was named the "city midwife" of Legnica/Lignitz. Her expertise and dexterity caught the attention of Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg who appointed her as his court midwife termed the „Chur-Brandenburgische Hof-Wehemutter“ in Berlin in 1683. She also served as royal midwife for Frederick III's sister Marie-Amalie, Duchess of Saxony-Zeitz, and delivered four of her children. At the court of August the Strong, she assisted Saxon Electress Eberhardine to give birth to her son, Frederick August II (1696). At the same time, she attended other births within the Berlin area.
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