191. Childbirth

概览

This episode of The Rest Is History discusses the history of childbirth and midwifery with Sarah, a literary historian whose work focuses on women’s bodies and early modern women’s experiences.

The discussion moves from ancient and early modern myths about birth to the practical world of parish midwives, religious duties, female birth communities, mortality, Caesarean sections, swaddling, fathers, birth positions, and the medicalisation of childbirth.

A central conclusion is that childbirth has always combined physical continuity with changing cultural frameworks: women’s bodies undergo the same process, but the setting, authority figures, rituals, risks, and social meanings around birth have shifted dramatically.

分段落总结

[00:30] Introducing the history of childbirth

[事实] The hosts introduce the episode as a long-planned discussion of childbirth and midwifery.

[事实] Tom says his interest is partly personal because his wife Sadie is a midwife.

[事实] The guest is introduced as a literary historian from Loughborough University who has written about women’s bodies and early modern women’s experiences.

[02:30] The meaning of “gossips”

[事实] Sarah explains that “gossips” originally referred to the women who attended and supported another woman during childbirth.

[事实] The word is linked to the root of “godparent” and carried a sense of being God’s helper or representative.

[推测] The later negative meaning of “gossip” is connected to suspicion about all-female birth spaces and the conversations taking place there.

[03:57] Male authority and written childbirth history

[事实] Sarah says most of the historical midwifery texts she works on were written by men.

[事实] Nicholas Culpepper wrote and translated midwifery textbooks, although he was widely believed never to have been inside a birthing chamber.

[事实] Culpepper’s wife later registered as a midwife after his death.

[推测] The surviving written record gives disproportionate authority to male voices, even though practical childbirth care was largely carried out by women.

[04:55] Agnodice and ancient midwifery

[事实] The supposed first named midwife, Agnodice of Athens, is described as probably mythical rather than securely historical.

[事实] The story says she disguised herself as a man to gain access to medical knowledge.

[事实] Sarah says women have always attended other women in labour, while male physicians were usually called in when complications arose.

[07:04] Magic, Pliny, and childbirth remedies

[事实] Tom reads Pliny the Elder’s advice that difficult labour could be helped by throwing over the house a missile or stone that had killed a human, a boar, and a bear.

[事实] Sarah says such advice reflects the blurred boundary between childbirth care and magic in situations full of uncertainty.

[事实] She explains that people broadly believed objects could take on qualities from their experiences.

[09:00] Marriage age and first pregnancies

[事实] Sarah says early modern women were not generally giving birth as young as many people assume.

[事实] In the 17th century, the average age of marriage was about 24 for women and 26 for men.

[事实] She says it has been estimated that around two thirds of women were pregnant when they married in the 16th and 17th centuries.

[事实] Betrothal was treated as a firm commitment, so some couples began sleeping together before formal marriage.

[10:54] Midwifery books and practical knowledge

[事实] The first English-language midwifery guide appeared in 1540 and was called The Birth of Mankind, with the subtitle The Woman’s Book.

[事实] It was translated from a text that had circulated across Europe and stayed in print in different forms for more than 70 years.

[事实] Theoretical knowledge in such books drew heavily on Galen and Hippocratic texts.

[事实] Practical midwifery knowledge was passed on through hands-on experience, often between women.

[事实] Jane Sharp argued in 1671 that good midwives needed both theoretical and practical knowledge.

[13:14] Early modern labour as community event

[事实] Sarah says ordinary or middling women did not usually withdraw for weeks before birth; they generally kept working until labour began.

[事实] The husband was often sent to fetch the midwife.

[事实] The midwife would commonly gather people for prayer before taking charge of the birth.

[事实] Friends, neighbours, mothers, mothers-in-law, and other “gossips” gathered around the labouring woman.

[推测] Birth functioned as a community event rather than a private nuclear-family experience.

[16:04] Religion, licensing, and midwives’ oaths

[事实] Sarah says religion was strongly connected to midwifery.

[事实] Jane Sharp framed midwifery as a godly duty and cited the midwives of Israel in Exodus.

[事实] From the early 16th century, formal midwives could be licensed through the church.

[事实] A midwife seeking a licence needed testimonials and had to take an oath.

[事实] The oath could include promises to treat rich and poor alike, behave as a godly woman, and ensure respectful burial if a child died before baptism.

[18:17] Training and informal midwives

[事实] A parish generally had a licensed midwife, though larger areas might have more than one.

[事实] Midwives trained through apprenticeship-like arrangements that could last around three to six years.

[事实] Apprentices were sometimes called deputies.

[事实] Where no licensed midwife was available, local experienced women known as handwomen might attend births.

[21:38] Midwives and witchcraft

[事实] Sarah says there is no evidence that midwives were generally marginalised as witches.

[事实] She cites David Harley’s work from the late 1980s as finding no evidence for midwives being treated as witches.

[推测] The idea that midwives were routinely persecuted as witches is presented as a modern myth rather than a historical pattern.

[23:32] Caesarean sections and Julius Caesar

[事实] Sarah says Julius Caesar himself was very unlikely to have been born by Caesarean section because his mother survived.

[事实] She says many cultures have stories of great people being born through surgical intervention.

[事实] Modern Caesarean sections became viable only with developments such as anaesthesia and antisepsis in the late 19th century.

[事实] Earlier surgical births were generally attempted when the mother was expected to die and the aim was to save the child.

[26:01] Maternal mortality and preparation for death

[事实] Sarah says women did prepare themselves for the possibility of death in childbirth.

[事实] She discusses Anne Bradstreet’s poem “Before the Birth of One of My Children,” written to her husband in case she died.

[事实] The “Mother’s Legacy” was a genre in which mothers wrote instructions for children in case they did not survive.

[事实] Sarah gives a late 17th-century maternal mortality figure of about 1.7%, or roughly one to two deaths per hundred births.

[事实] She says the figure later worsened, citing 5.94 in 1933.

[29:02] Medicalisation and infection

[事实] Sarah connects the worsening mortality rate to medicalisation and the routine involvement of physicians in childbirth.

[事实] She says doctors could move from post-mortems or surgery into birth rooms without adequate hygiene, introducing germs.

[事实] She identifies puerperal or childbirth fever as a major problem.

[事实] Men were also more likely to be involved in difficult births requiring interventions such as forceps.

[30:10] Swaddling

[事实] Sarah says swaddling is still practised and is effective for soothing infants.

[事实] Jane Sharp wrote that swaddling was important because it helped children’s limbs grow straight.

[事实] Sarah says there were timetables for unswaddling, such as releasing the infant’s arms at about four months.

[31:14] Fathers and the birth chamber

[事实] Fathers were generally not welcome in the birth chamber.

[事实] They might be present in unusual circumstances if something required their involvement.

[事实] In ordinary cases, their role was often to fetch the midwife and then stay away until needed.

[32:04] Louis XIV and birth positions

[事实] Sarah says Louis XIV is on record as watching deliveries and insisting on being present.

[事实] She does not confirm the claim that he had a fetish for watching women give birth.

[事实] Sarah says Louis XIV did not drive the wider practice of women giving birth on their backs.

[事实] François Mauriceau, a Parisian physician, wrote in 1668 about women moving into a semi-recumbent position for the final stage of labour.

[事实] Sarah says that passage ultimately came from Aristotle.

[事实] Earlier practices included active labour, squatting, birthing stones, birthing chairs, and support from gossips.

[35:48] Hospital birth and women’s lived experience

[事实] Sarah says historians once relied heavily on medical textbooks because those sources were accessible.

[事实] She notes that this could make prescriptive medical texts look like direct evidence of what happened in all births.

[事实] Lying-in hospitals began in London in the mid-18th century.

[事实] Sarah says it took hundreds of years for women to be brought into hospitals for childbirth.

[推测] The field has increasingly shifted toward recovering women’s lived experience rather than only reading childbirth through medical authority.

[39:21] Call the Midwife and social change

[事实] Sarah says the early episodes of Call the Midwife show how important the nuns’ service was to poor women in Poplar.

[事实] The series is based on the memoirs of Jennifer Worth, who worked in that environment as a midwife.

[事实] Sarah says the birth scenes are authentic because clinical editor Terry Coates is involved in overseeing them.

[事实] The hosts and Sarah discuss the show as a way to understand social change, the NHS, and changing maternity care in Britain.

[42:01] Commonality across childbirth history

[事实] Sarah says the physical process of giving birth is essentially the same across time.

[事实] She says what changes is the cultural environment, such as whether birth happens at home, in a medicalised setting, or surrounded by friends.

[事实] She says 17th-century women’s letters and diaries discuss family growth, feelings before labour, and physical recovery afterward.

[推测] The episode ends by framing childbirth history as both deeply continuous and culturally variable.

播客点评/总结

[推测] The episode’s main strength is that it treats childbirth as social history, not only medical history. It shows how birth involved women’s networks, religious belief, household economics, community recognition, and later institutional change.

[推测] The guest is especially effective at correcting popular myths: Julius Caesar and Caesarean birth, midwives as witches, very young early modern mothers, and Louis XIV as the cause of back-lying births are all treated with caution.

[推测] The discussion is strongest on early modern England and the transition toward medicalisation. It is less detailed on non-European traditions, despite briefly mentioning that Caesarean birth stories appear across cultures.

[推测] This episode is well suited to listeners interested in women’s history, medical history, early modern society, and how ordinary bodily experiences are shaped by religion, institutions, and community practice.