Overview

The routine delivery of a healthy child by skilled and knowledgeable birth attendants is a relatively modern phenomenon. Centuries ago, ignorance about anatomy, particularly female anatomy, combined with a lack of knowledge about pregnancy, labor, and delivery, made childbirth a life-threatening process for both mother and child. Before the fourteenth century, pregnancy and childbirth were of little interest to the medical community. Female midwives, whose actions fell under the jurisdiction of the Church, attended laboring women. The admission of medical men and their technologies to the birth chamber, which became increasingly common during the fifteenth century, signaled the beginning of obstetrics as a scientific discipline and marked the decline of midwifery. The inclusion of physicians, unfortunately, did little to improve a woman's chances of safe delivery during a difficult labor.

Background

Until the beginning of the fourteenth century, care...