A shocking 80% of Heimaey’s babies once died at birth, until in the 1840s an island woman, Sólveig, was sent abroad to be trained as a midwife. The tiny wooden house Landlyst was Sólveig’s maternity hospital (and is the second oldest building on the island). Today it contains a small display of her blood-letting equipment and other 19th-century medical paraphernalia.
