The Queen suffered post-natal side effects after giving birth to Andrew having used the now discredited Dammerschlaf technique for the delivery of her first three children, a new book claims.
It tells of how the late Queen showed considerable stoicism in her later years as she suffered deteriorating health and yet continued to keep herself busy until the end.
But it has also given a rare insight into the details over the births of her children which are normally kept private, with the book by Gyles Brandreth giving some surprise information about the deliveries.
Charles, Anne and Andrew were all born using the Dammerschlaf or twilight sleep technique where the pregnant woman is put in an amnesic state.
This approach to giving birth originated in Germany and became popular in New York at the start of the 20th century.
It involves women being given injections of morphine and scopolamine which caused a drowsy state with some pain loss but without a loss of consciousness.
Popularity of the technique dwindled, though, as it was difficult to give the precise measurements of the drugs and also because it caused amnesia so there was still pain but the pregnant women just didn’t remember it.
Along with this there were post-natal impacts and this appears to have been the case during the birth of Prince Andrew according to Brandreth’s book, reported the Daily Mail.
It states: "The Queen's first three children were born using a now-discredited form of childbirth known as 'Dammerschlaf' during which patients are drugged to put them in an amnesic state during labour known as 'twilight sleep'."
And apparently a problem arose following the birth of Andrew.
"A lady-in-waiting reveals that the technique, which allows women to remain semi-conscious but with little pain or recollection of the experience, left her suffering 'post-natal side effects' with Andrew – and Edward was born naturally,” it continued.
The book also claimed that the Queen was suffering from a form of bone marrow cancer called myeloma in her final years although her official cause of death was "old age".
"I had heard that the Queen had a form of myeloma — bone marrow cancer — which would explain her tiredness and weight loss and those ‘mobility issues’ we were often told about during the last year or so of her life," Brandreth wrote.
