Browsing all posts in "maternity".

Anything a Woman Can Do, A Man Can Do Better

Somewhere around the 17th century, a new class of obstetric practitioners developed, first in England and then spreading to the Continent. They called themselves man-midwives. The theory was that those uneducated women who had been practicing midwifery for generations (millennia) were just too stupid to actually do a good job. It took a man. We [...]

The Curious Case of the Pig Farmer and his Wife

The infamous Caesarian Section, so named not because it saved the great politician from an early death (Julius Caesar was born by normal means) but because it was codified into law in the Roman Empire, was, sadly, the option of last resort through the dark and middle ages. It was common practice to attempt to [...]

World War II and the WHO

We temporarily leave the dark ages to comment on  a study I saw this week about the WHO’s C-section rate recommendations. First, some background. The natural childbirth movement in America began in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The origins are mucky and unclear. It is often touted as a feminist response to the increasingly [...]

Greek Maternity, or Why French Aristrocrats Cut Off Their Left Testicle

I promised you the history of motherhood, and by golly, that’s what you’re going to get. Hippocrates believed that the uterus had two sides, possibly with a septum in the center. While this is present in approximately 3% of the human female population (and does not appear to affect fertility), it is not considered normal [...]