Giving birth is the most natural thing on Earth, says women’s wellness expert Marla Ahlgrimm. However, there is so much our ancestors didn’t know about how the process actually worked. Read on for Ahlgrimm’s list of the top four most unusual childbirth practices from the history books.
1. Doctors once ruled against anesthetics.
According to Marla Ahlgrimm, pain medicine was once shunned by the medical community, at least for laboring mothers. In the early 20th century, male physicians on the Board of Obstetrics voted against introducing anesthetics in the labor and delivery room. Their reasoning? Women were supposed to suffer in repentance for Eve’s biblically bad behavior.
Having a baby is usually a private affair with the mom, partner, and one or two close friends in the delivery room for support. Marla Ahlgrimm says this wasn’t always the case for royal mums, especially in Europe. In France and other monarchies, royal babies were delivered in front of a crowd of spectators, just to make sure there was no regal switch-a-roo.
3. Laboring moms drank ale and whisky.
We know so much now about how alcohol can affect a baby in-utero. Our relatively recent ancestors did not, and used to encourage laboring moms to take the edge off with a shot of whisky or growler full of whatever ale was available at the time. Marla Ahlgrimm explains that alcohol used to be consumed much like we drink water today, so no one considered that it might be dangerous.
4. Babies were sometimes left unwashed for days after birth – a practice that’s coming back.
Marla Ahlgrimm says a common practice in some cultures was to leave the baby’s skin unwashed for three days after being born. This was to protect the child against any evil lurking nearby. In ancient Greece, mom and baby were washed immediately because birth blood was considered evil and unclean. Many present-day naturalists believe that babies should not be washed since the vernix (the white waxy film covering a newborn’s skin) provides benefits to the baby.