Since when natural childbirths became taboo?
Human evolution is known as the process of human beings development on Earth from the now-extinct primates. The Homo sapiens, upright-walking species that lives on the ground, likely first evolved in Africa about 315,000 years ago, curiously — it’s what we name ourselves.
The new features of Homo sapiens are resumed in two aspects, smaller pelvises and bigger brains. Naturally, the organic course of human evolution showed giving birth more difficult during the progression of species, once the pelvic region was narrow and the babies, when passing by the birth canal, had bigger heads.
Combining physical and social aspects, giving birth became one of the most feared and painful events in a woman’s life. Combining the high risks of dying and the archaic cultural features at the time, which established a considerable amount of children, especially for royal women.
“I don’t see what women see in other women,” I told Doctor Nolan in my interview that noon. “What does a woman see in a woman that she can’t see in a man?” Doctor Nolan paused. Then she said, “Tenderness.”
– Sylvia Plath
Midwives are listed as a cultural and medical intervention even before 298 B.C. Other studies believe they were present in deliveries about 1,5 million years ago.
Highly appreciated in childbirths, these women used to aid the mother during the delivery. Known as experts of herb medications, push & rest times, labour positions, and how to move the baby still in the womb.
Until the 18th century, midwives were solely represented by women. These females served the mother and her family during pregnancy, delivery and postpartum. Compared to what we know today, the women’s health knowledge they had was limited. Besides that, midwives’ roles also consisted of domestic activities such as cleaning sheets and cooking, taking care of newborns, their mother, husband, and even other children of the family for the following days after birth.
Usually, there was one midwife and other females in the delivery scene, which could be family relatives, ladies-in-waiting or even neighbours. During the 16th and 17th century, social taboos were strict. The man allowed to see or touch women naked was solely her husband, a fact that for years banned the masculine figure out of the birth-giving moment.
For royalty women, having a baby was accomplished of national importance, being vividly celebrated in monarchies around the world. Such claim may be identified in the Disney movie Sleeping Beauty, which narrates the story of Princess Aurora, cursed by Maleficient while a baby. Knights with standing flags, loud music, and noble members carry gifts to celebrate the newborn princess during the first minutes of the animation.
Those huge celebrations were opportunities for the socialisation of the community, which used to “catch up,” telling news and important updates about their personal lives. The name of the women responsible for such conversations was God sibs, a term that designated the now-used word “gossip.”
In the Middle Ages, boys were most expected than girls, once they were eligible to enter politics and take care of finances. Like so, midwives were paid a higher fee if delivered a male healthy heir. Women were not eligible to rule, a fact that provided an average income for the midwives.
In the original Netflix series Bridgerton, the mother of the Duke of Hastings is left to die in her childbed — after being through a struggling birth. However, his father seems outstandingly happy when discovering he’s having a boy, “a viable heir”, despising his wife’s farewell in the bed next to him.
When the baby was born “deformed” — known today as some kind of syndrome or congenital malformation — , the midwife was accused of “bewitching.” In some cases even paying for it with her own life.
In the series Game of Thrones, Tywin’s cruelty towards his youngest son Tyrion, a dwarf, is originated from the character angriness of the death of his wife in childbirth. Tyron’s older sister Cersei also blames him for being a dwarf and “killing” their mother, calling him a disgraced curse to the family.
Females used to choose their own bed to deliver babies. However, that claim may vary between countries and cultures, adapting the birth spot to the most comfortable and private place found. Mothers delivered babies in huts — after burned — out of their houses in Japan. Mothers got into labour in the traditional igloos in Inuit populations. Women used to deliver in barns in France. And, mothers got into labour in horse stalls in South America — where more than twelve million black people were slaves.
The birth preparation was a tough and uncertain moment, feared by several females at the time. Women used to pray for a safe delivery and a healthy child, resting a few days or weeks before it. The birthplace, usually the mother’s own chamber, used to be covered with carpets and tapestries to look like the womb, blocking the excess of light. Also, the stats were pretty scary, considering about 1 in 3 women died in their childbearing years, and 1 in 4 children didn’t live to see their first birthday.
The father’s role was mainly to warn the community about the delivery. Such news as if the mother had survived or not, plus the health status and gender of the baby.
The balanced diet was seriously followed by puerperal. As said before, the births were extremely dangerous, sickening women that further needed more nourishing.
Usually prepared by midwives, or even kitchen staff — mostly usual in royal families — , postpartum meals consisted in:
— coddles, fortified alcoholic porridges or eggnogs
Women who had lost vitamins, minerals, and water in labour used to ingest that nourishing food. In some cases, midwives recommended mothers to eat their own placenta since it’s an organ full of nutrients.
Also, to celebrate the arrival of the newborn, Groaning Cakes — referring to the specific noise women made while delivering — were offered to mothers. It was believed that the smell of the cake while being baked used to help ease the birthing pain.
Pope Innocent VIII strongly believed there was a witch network all over Western Europe in 1484. Afraid of witchcraft, he guaranteed that loyal men and women received instructions to identify those “witches.” The execution of suspects exponentially increased at the time, mostly killing innocent women.
From 1484 until around 1750, some 200,000 witches were tortured, burnt or hanged in Western Europe. Absurd witch trials torture techniques — used as proof of bewitching — consisted of “swimming tests,” “prayer tests,” and “pricking and scratching tests.”
Midwives were frequently spotted as sorceresses due to their control and power over life, and death, once they knew about herbs that could medicate and also herbs that could kill.
The figure of a male doctor appeared in deliveries and attending burrs in the 18th century, required by wealthy families since the midwives reputation was completely ruined. Also, midwives were accused of being ignorant and dirty, which contributed to male doctors occupying their positions.
The male doctors weren’t as resilient as the midwives, neither did have such sensibility to take care of pregnant women. Situations as screaming and arguing in front of the mother during labour were frequent, the first signs of obstetric violence in history.
Haemorrhages and obstructed labours also became more frequent, contributing to more painful labours, and infant deaths, since the priority was choosing the baby over the mother in case of the possibility of death.
Treatments for postpartum haemorrhages consisted of Birgit’s usage — a fungus that grows in wheat known for its hallucination properties — to start postpartum contractions, also immediately breastfeed the baby, producing oxytocin, that contracts and shrinks the uterus. Also, in Colonial America, bloodletting was the cure-all, a procedure that consisted of the withdrawal of blood from a patient to cure illness.
It was believed that blood was made of “four humours” in the Middle Ages. Four elements, that when unbalanced, caused several health damages. Considering that, women with haemorrhage used to do bloodletting, believing that reducing the blood circulation would force clotting. Unfortunately, it only worse the haemorrhages, leading those women to death.
Treatments for obstructed labour — when the baby was too large, located in the wrong position, or for some sort of problem in the birth canal that stopped the baby from exiting the pelvis — consisted in the anointing of hands with oil or butter to push the baby out, still into the womb. This procedure was strictly performed by women, such as midwives or a doctor’s assistant.
Fun fact: during the birth of Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, his mother Princess Victoria, lost strength during delivery, and the doctors decided to push out the baby. It resulted in severe nerve damage to the baby left arm, paralysing the limb, becoming several inches shorter than the right.
In the 17th century, forceps were invented by the Chamberlain family to help with births issues. They kept it a secret for 150 years, only making exceptions to the highest paying clientele. The invention was leaked at the beginning of the 19th century, helping thousands of women. However, it introduced the bacteria that caused child bad fever, known nowadays as pure Beryl Fever — when women were healthy after the delivery but suddenly had a terrible fever and eventually died.
Elizabeth of York, the mother of Henry VIII, died of postpartum infection due to the unsanitary conditions during the delivery. Also did die of the same cause the two spouses of Henry, Jane Seymour and Catherine Parr.
In the begging of 1800, people started moving on to cities where houses were dirty and unhealthy. Poor women began to deliver babies in hospitals, which weren’t a much better option, increasing the number of postpartum infections deaths.
It was observed that women that had their babies in the student-run clinic (hospital ruled by men) had an 18% of mortality rate while the midwife women clinic had a 6% of mortality rate.
That’s because male doctors used to do autopsies — a surgical procedure that examines a dead body by dissection, willing to determine the cause of death — before delivering babies without washing their hands. The male doctors blamed their own patients’ over the lack of hygiene, determining that the pregnant women were dirty and unhygienic, indirectly causing their own death.
Later it became obligatory for doctors to wash their hands before assisting pregnant women, a measure that “mysteriously” dropped the rate of mortality.
In cases when women died, a rare procedure to save the baby’s life was to cut the abdomen (a try of caesarean section), perhaps related to the name of Julius Caesar. It is believed that the general was the first person to be born via c-section. However, the name itself is derived from the Latin word “caedare,” which means “to cut.”
The Queen Durdhara, mother of Bindusara, in 298 BC, accidentally swallowed poison and died seven days away from delivery. Her husband Chanakya entered the birth room the very time she collapsed, and immediately cut open the dead queen’s belly and took the baby out, saving the child.
After discussing Pope Innocent VIII influence on obstetrics, the Catholic Church didn’t contribute solely to the “extinction” of midwives, however, preached that the baby was tainted by the original sin, being baptism crucial to make sure the baby’s soul would “go to heaven.”
In case of infant death, the midwife baptised the baby, bathing the corpus with holy water willing to save its immortal soul. That crazy religious sacrament preoccupation lead to baptise babies still in the womb, penetrating holy water through the mother’s birth canal before delivering.
Midwives were the only people allowed to perform holy sacraments outside of the church. They had to prove their Christian faith and moral character, besides their medical experience, to perform the baptism.
As pain is the most frequent noun used to described Middle Ages labours, the health professionals at the time had to create alternatives to minimise the act of becoming a mother.
Opium — a drug derived from the poppy, containing proximally 12% of morphine — was used as an analgesic to help with contractions pains. However, due to the strong Catholic influence on society’s at the time, opium was criminalised. In Genesis, it is said that the pain of labour is a consequence of the original sin. Therefore, pain relief was considered sinful since it would be against God’s will.
According to the Bible, women deserved pain. In 1591, a Scottish woman was burnt at stake for asking for pain relief during the birth of twins.
Queen Victoria popularised chloroform when using it to ease the pain of the birth of Prince Leopold in 1853. The Queen was so impressed with the results that return to use it in 1857 when her daughter Princess Beatrice was born. Years later, when Prince Leopold was diagnosed with haemophilia — the deficiency in making clots, usually bleeding longer than expected — doctors blamed his mother for using chloroform when delivering, as the cause of the disease.
However, Queen Victoria was a haemophilia carrier, — a genetic disorder —also some of her descendants, which explains her son being also a carrier.
In the 1900s, Twilight became famous after Queen Elizabeth II used it when delivering her third son Prince Andrew, Duke of York in 1960. It consisted of a combination of morphine and scopolamine, used to ease the pain and erasing memory. That way, her baby could be pulled out with forceps while she was unconscious.
The main problem was that women didn’t remember their births and weren’t 100% asleep, sometimes hurting themselves. For that reason, doctors used to tighten women legs and arms during labour, avoiding further complications.
The Epidural was developed in 1921 by Fidel Pagés. Initially created to treat wounded soldiers in severe pain, the epidural consists of a combination of drugs that are injected through a catheter into the epidural space near the spinal core, numbing the lower part of the body. It is worldwide used by women during c-sections, providing more comfort when delivering.
Also, men started being more present in paternity when invited to join the birth experience. As common as it is today, fathers start appearing in the labour, delivery, and recovery room (LDR), having more contact with the babies.
But returning to the main question itself: since when natural childbirths became taboo?
The word taboo means a subject, word, or action that is avoided for religious or social reasons. Analysing the historical, social and political context women were in these several years, it is factful to conclude that natural childbirths were always a taboo.
Women couldn’t choose who to marry, usually being forced to spend the rest of their lives with distant relatives or even older men who even didn’t reside in the same house as theirs. Another question is the age of getting pregnant. In ancient times, females used to be forced to have babies after the menarche — the first menstrual period — which happens during the puberty ages of 8 to 17 years.
How did society expect a child to take care of another child?
Watching all women in the family face unbearable pain just to deliver a baby they probably didn’t want, originated from several violent sexual assaults, which were usually the only “affection” they had in a lifetime. Besides that, girls were forced to have babies with men older than their fathers. Who was in charge to explain to those girls they had to quit playing with dolls to start breastfeeding real ones?
Resuming women to the social female function of delivering heirs is purely cruel and evil. Midwives were accused of bewitching, the pregnant women who died of postpartum infection were blamed for their deaths and later weren’t eligible to ask for anaesthesia.
*Considering the entire heritage of childbirth pain, it is frequent that women quickly associate natural births with something unbearable and fatal. Females took so long to conquer women’s rights that may think that returning to the “old traditions’ wouldn’t be as smart as bet in technology. Between choosing a hospital setting, where a dozen c-sections are made daily or choosing a vaginal birth, mothers usually choose the first option. A hospital looks more “prepared” for emergencies in case anything happens. Despite natural births being also delivered in hospitals, women tend to prefer the seeming lowest risk procedure.
*Besides that, the lack of information also contributes to fewer women being interest in natural childbirth. Some doctors manipulate their clients to prefer the c-section, claiming the most absurd claims such as the obligation of an episiotomy or an irreversible enlargement of the vaginal canal. Also, it is a quick and relatively safe procedure, being more expensive than vaginal births.
(*Referring to the Brazilian stats)
However, this archaic perspective of natural births being related to death is changing. Nowadays, it is possible to hire a doula, a kind of XXI century midwife. Doulas are specialised professionals who provide emotional support during and after birth, besides not being a medical doctor. These professionals usually help with relaxation techniques and labour positions once doulas don’t surgically deliver babies.
In case you would like a more personalised experience, a doula along with an obstetrician would be a good choice for those who aren’t safe enough to do a c-section but want to learn more about delivering your child naturally. It is possible along with doctor appointments choosing the right kind of labour. Also, some religions enhance the beauty of conceiving life and eventually putting it into the world — literally — are influencing the desire for having “spiritual” births.
Umbanda and Candomblé, both Afro-Brazilian religions, worship the orixás, gods of nature, each one with special energy related to life processes. Labour is related to the yabás, a word translated from Yoruba that means “mothers”, or “the one that feeds their children,” represented by feminine orixás.
Oxum, queen of freshwaters, own the amniotic fluid and the egg, taking care of the baby until it learns how to speak. Yansã, queen of wind and storms, protects the child against bad spirits. Nanã, the wise grandma, teaches the child virtues and gives advice. And, Yemanjá, the mother of all, protects the child and its family.
Motherhood is definitely the most rewarding and magical experience women may have. The unbreakable bond of pregnancy, despite the delivery, is the strongest and purest way of unconditional love. Mothers shape their children into warriors, regardless of difficulties, defects or availability. What shame society has made the extraordinary experience of growing life look paradoxically deathful.
“I believe the choice to become a mother is the choice to become one of the greatest spiritual teachers there is.”
— Oprah
