Help for Medieval Midwives

[medievalrosalie]

 

Morgan Bible showing a new mother with her child in a cradle.

Medieval birthing was a perilous affair at the best of times, and a small amount is written for the expectant mother and the physician who might attend her. 

Hildegarde von Bingen was an early medieval Nun and polymath who wrote extensively on many topics. She wrote treatices on the natural world and the properties of everything from botanics to music to minerals to foods to the animals which provided them.

Among her writings, we find advice to the expectant mother and the midwife who would be delivering her child. In this case, she offered advice for what we call today, a breech birth. Should the baby be facing the wrong way for delivery, she might assist with the remedy above.

As modern people, what do we think about this? Could there be any merit in an old medieval recipe?

Let's examine the evidence. The flax seed creates a gel-like substance when cooked in water, which would have been very useful. Those who have cooked chickpeas are already aware that the liquid they are cooked in also becomes quite slippery.

A combination of the two together would have been perfect for making the birthing canal more pliant and slippery, thus likely to encourage a backwards baby. It seems that in this case, old remedies had actual use. It's no wonder that these ideas were handed down and became folk cures and old wives' tales.


 

Comments

[cmcmck]

I love Hildegard's music.

It always worries me that folksong talks so much about abortifacients- rue, hyssop, wolfsbane, pennyroyal

[medievalrosalie]

Yes! It's the advice you give when you don't give advice. She was a complex woman.