Many women suffered greatly and many more died in childbirth regardless of whether they were rich or poor.

A medieval gynecological treatise from the medical school of Salerno called The Diseases of Women wrote of the horrors and dangers of childbirth with little to relieve the stresses of childbirth other than poultices and prayer.

Other medical texts, some attributed to a female physcian named Trotula, now collectively known to be the work of more than one author and simply known as The Trotula, and those from Hildegard von Bingen had other helpful advice for the expectant mother and for during and following the birth itself.

Not all of it was that great, but certainly some of it may have been helpful.

Many childbirth scenes in manuscripts and paintings are glossed over, shown post-partum, mother and child clean and happy.

The image at left is from the Hague and was made in the 15th century.

It shows a woman standing to give birth and bracing herself with a towel wrapped around a post. She is delivering twins, one of which has been safely delivered and is being cleaned off with a towel behind her. The second child is appearing from beneath the voluminous fold of her clothing, although I suspect this is more for modestly's sake rather than an effort to show actual childbirth. The angle of the delivery looks very unlikely.

To avert a miscarriage

Many expectant mothers were apprehensive about becoming mothers, and shared the same concerns we do about not carrying a child to full term.

Medical advice was extremely careful about offering advice to pregnant women, because it realised that by saying what would strengthen a pregnancy and would would actively harm it, it might inadvertantly offer advice on terminating an unwanted pregnancy.

This was, as far as the church concerned, a sin.

Never-the-less, many remedies to ensure a good pregnancy were offered, like this one from texts attributed to Trotula:

"Against miscarriage accustomed to happen to certain women in the seventh or ninth month...

Take oil, wax, powder of frankincence, and mastic, and mix them, and let the woman be annointed front and back two or three times a week. This very much strengthens the womb and the cotyledons."

Cotyledons are the sections inside the womb which make up the placenta.

During labour

Many pain-relieving options were available for the woman who was birthing, but none were particularly effective. Largely, these consisted of herbal poultices, folk remedies and devout prayer.

Invoking the name of Saint Margaret, the patron saint of childbirth, was always believed to ease labour pains and assure a safe delivery.

Other advice advocated for childbirth in the middle ages included rubbing the flanks of the expectant mother with rose oil, giving her vinegar and sugar to drink, or applying poultices of ivory or eagle's dung.

Gemstones were also utilised to ease childbirth. Placing a magnet in the mother's hand was believed to provide relief, as was wearing coral around her neck.

In the twelfth century, Hildegard Von Bingham wrote of the powers of the stone called sard in relation to childbirth:

"If a pregnant woman is beset by pain but is unable to give birth, rub sard around both of her thighs and say "Just as you, stone, by the order of God, shone on the first angel, so you, child, come forth a shining person, who dwells with God."

Immediately, hold the stone at the exit for the child, that is, the female member, and say, "Open you roads and door, in that epiphany by which Christ appeared both human and God, and opened the gates of Hell. Just so, child, may you also come out of this door without dying, and without the death of your mother." Then tie the same stone to a belt and cinch it around her, and she will be cured."

Another suggestion for the delivery of a breech birth said that the midwife should:

"...with her small and gentle hand moistened with a decoction of flaxseed and chickpeas, put the child back in it's place and proper position."

In cases of difficult births for noble ladies, the mother-to-be could have been advised to put on a holy girdle which would help to alleviate the pains.

At Rievaulx Abbey in Yorkshire, monks guarded the girdle of St Ailred as it was known to be helpful to ladies lying in.

The birthing scroll at left is not a girdle per se, but more of an item to gird one's loins with. It has medical writings and prayers written on it, and has traces of amniotic fluid staining it, strongly suggesting it was used during the birth process.

The Sickness of Women, one of the texts attributed to the Trotula, wrote of a beneficial girdle made of a hart's skin and also wrote of jasper being beneficial, backing up Hildegarde's thoughts of the stone.

Mentioned in an English will dated 1508 is:

"Also, one small girdle harnessed with silver and gilt which is an heirloom, called Our Lady's girdle, for sick women with child, I will that it be delivered to my son Roger, to remain as an heirloom."

Royal births were accompanied by much pomp and ceremony. When Henry III's pregnant queen Eleanor was due with her fourth child, she borrowed the Virgin's Girdle and a thousand candles were lit around her husband's tomb for the safe delivery of her baby.

The baby boy was christened Edmund because the antiphon of St Edmund was being chanted on Eleanor's behalf at the time of the baby's safe delivery.

Pictured, at left, is a detail from a fresco by painter da Milano in 1365 of The Birth of The Virgin.

The new mother is already fully clothed ansd is attended by many women who stand by with towels and warm water for not only herself, but with a large, copper, footed basin to wash the new babe.

Whether the mother is accurately portrayed in her clothing or whether she is painted that way to preserve her modesty can only be guessed.

Other images of births usually show the mother as partially clad or in a chemise, although the illumination detail at the right from the Bible of Wenceslaus IV, dated between approx 1390 and 1400 shows a new mother who is completely naked except for her hair net.

Food is brought to her, while her swaddled twins are held.

Post-birth observances

Rituals surrounding medieval childbirth included the essential burning of the newborn's umbilical cord in the household fireplace. The puryifing influence of fire was seen as a way of counteracting the sinful origins of conception.

Lorenzetti's painting, The Birth of Mary, painted in 1342, detail at left, shows a birthing scene.

The mother has just given birth and rests on the checked coverlet of her bed while an attendant sits next to her with a fan. The women attending the birth wash the infant. Bowls to wash with and towels are shown, much as the home births of today are prepared for.

There are no men attending the birth.

The Trotula offers more practical advice to the post-partum mother. Her advice is this:

"For pain of the vagina after birth, take rue, mugwort, and camphor, grind them well and, having prepared them with musk oil or pennyroyal oil and warmed them in a pot, wrap them in a cloth and insert as a suppository."

For rupture of the genitals from birth, the Trotula again has practical advice:

"For rupture of the lower parts after birth, take root of comfrey, dry it and then pulverise it well, and put with fine powder of cumin and also cinnamon in the vagina, and it will be solidified."

If the birth itself had finished, but the afterbirth had not presented, the Trotula turns to herbals again:

"For birth of the womb and for bringing out the afterbirth. Take root of parsley, leaves of leek, and borage, and extract the juice, and mix in a little oil, and give to the patient to drink, and put vinegar into the vagina, and she will be freed."

Hildegard von Bingham, writing from the twelfth century, offered slightly less helpful advice to mothers who had just given birth.

She advocated that from the time of the child's birth and throughout its infancy, a stone of jasper should be kept on her hand. Possibly she means set into a ring, although this is unclear. The jasper would supposedly also protect the child from evil as it emerges from the womb.

New Mothers

New mothers were forbidden to attend church until properly prepared post-birth in the ritual of churching.

This was the ceremony where a woman was welcomed back into the church after childbirth and was once again permitted to take the sacraments.

Until that time, a woman might not touch holy water, bake bread or prepare food. How rigidly this baking of bread and preparing of food was adhered to in a small domestic or peasant setting is unknown. Certainly in larger, more affluent households where help was available, the practice would have been carefully noted.

Seen at right is a fully dressed mother in bed with her babe and a female attendant from the Maciejowski Bible.

It seems unlikely that a peasant woman would refrain from her chores for any extended period of time if she had a husband and other children in her care.

Breastfeeding

Many noble women were often not too involved in the direct upbringing of their babies, preferring to hire the services of a wet nurse in place of breastfeeding the children themselves.

At left we can see a noble woman inspecting the breast of the woman she hopes to employ to feed her baby for her. It was believed that any bad traits, healthwise or moral failings, could be transferred to the baby via the milk, so it was a serious business choosing the right woman for the job.

This, of course, was not encouraged by the church who felt that if the Virgin suckled her own child, then noble women should do likewise.

Often the wet nurse had a little one of their own as well and there was also a concern that the mother's own child would be missing out.

Many breastfeeding images of the Madonna show the front of the kirtle partially unlaced and the breast pulled out from the top with the exposed breast in physically unlikely places, set impossibly high on the clavicle.

These images of Mary breastfeeding the baby Jesus are known as Madonna Lactans.

Alternately, breastfeeding mothers are sometimes shown wearing a gown which has two small, vertical slits in the gown which made breastfeeding easy.

Seen at right is a detail from the nativity scene in the Luttrell Psalter, folio 86v which dates from the early 14th century. The babe is securely swaddles and is being fed by his mother.

For more information on breastfeeding clothes, visit the MATERNITY WEAR page.

Since the pain of breastfeeding is a universal trait amongst brand new mothers, it comes as no surprise to learn that the Trotula texts also had advice for the medieval woman whose breasts were tender and engorged.

She advocates:

"For pain of the breasts caused by milk, we should mix clay with vinegar and make a plaster; this diminishes the pain and constricts the milk. But first we should foment the place with warm water."

The Four Seasons of the House of Cerruti, which is a copy of the Tacuinum Sanitatis from the 14th century in Vienna has this to say about promoting milk:

"An excellent thing, the onion, and highly suited for old people. They generate milk in nursing mothers and fertile semen in men."

An interesting detail from the 15th century shows a nurse feeding a baby from a hand held device which is pear-shaped with a teat. It looks like a false breast, although I have seen nothing in writing to support this as a common practice, either for milk or water.

It is possible that some of the weirdly positioned breasts in the Madonna Lactans paintings are actually hand-held devices like this one, which would explain the weird positioning, except for the fact that the church of the time used Mary as an example of a breastfeeding mother. This would not be the case if the images showed her doing exactly the opposite.

It's pretty interesting, though.

Keeping baby clean and healthy

Slightly less has been written about the care of a newborn once it is delivered from it's mother and cared for initially, but there are some clues from medieval manuscripts on how an infant should be treated.

In regard to bathing, Francesco da Barberino, a notary and writer who lived between 1264–1348 in Tuscany, wrote in Reggimento e costumi di donna:

"You should wash the baby after he has had a long nap. In warm weather, use tepid water. In cold weather, use warmer water, but never use scalding water.

You should wash the baby two or three times a day, but take care not to wash him so long that he becomes red and overheated. When you wash his ears, make sure that the water doesn’t get inside him.

And if he, on his own, wants to kick his legs in the water, let him do it, because that builds his strength.

If it is winter, wash the baby near the fire. Stretch out his legs and feet toward the kidneys. Bend his joints, and grease them with oil. You should also grease his nostrils with oil. Then dry him off with soft cloths, and if he is cold, warm him up first."

Other baby care hints can be gathered from the same manuscript: from advice in what to look for when hiring a wet nurse, to the list of requirements and duties of said wet nurse.

 

Swaddling bands

Medieval newborns and infants were wrapped in swaddling bands. These were wide bands which wrapped the baby from neck to feet.

This was believed to provide warmth, encourage the baby's limbs to grow straight and keep the baby supported. One common belief was that the limbs of a baby were loosely-jointed and that sudden movements were harmful to the development of the child.

In medieval Europe, there were two main swaddling methods that we see in art: the tightly-swathed circular technique and the looser crisscross technique.

The detail at right from the Master of Trebon, The Adoration Of Jesus, circa 1380, shows the babe snugly wrapped from top to ankles, unusually leaving the toes exposed.

Swaddling clothes generally consisted of a square of cloth with two or more additional bandages for securing. The baby was laid on the cloth diagonally and the corners were folded over the body and the feet and under the head with the bandages being tied securely around the baby.

This formed the baby's clothing until it was about eight or nine months of age.

Soranus, a physician from the second century, wrote about the swaddling of infants. He recommended that babies be tightly bound from the feet to the shoulders. His recommendations were later included in medical and midwifery books in late 15th century Europe.

The detail shown, at left, by Geburt Christi dated at 1330, shows the baby Jesus wrapped in green swaddling clothes and matching bands instead of the traditional white.

Coloured bands of blue, red or green do not appear to be entirely uncommon in early medieval art, but white is the overwhelmingly most popular choice.

Copyright © Rosalie Gilbert
All text & photographs within this site are the property of Rosalie Gilbert unless stated.
Art & artifact images remain the property of the owner.
Images and text may not be copied and used without permission.