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Life is so easy now. Sometimes I
wonder how people survived in bygone days without medical teams to help in
times of crisis. For instance, in the past, women gave birth with only the aid
of people close by—maybe the local midwife if the village was big enough to
need one. What happened if the pregnant woman was carrying several babies?
I watched a BBC television last
night on that subject. The British Cold Case team arrived at a site which had
been occupied from the earliest times in Baldock, Hertfordshire, which is north
of London and close to where I live. They'd been called to investigate the former
life of a woman lying on her side, who had been buried two thousand years ago with
the skeletons of three babies around her. Tests put together an interesting
picture of her past life.
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The 4ft 11 inch tall woman lived
in 100AD beside a Roman occupation, midway between when Julius Caesar arrived
in 55BC, was driven off, and returned one year later, and when the Romans left
in 500AD. The tale of Kind Arthur dates from this latter period.
However, the woman wasn't Roman,
but Celtic, so she wouldn't have had any assistance from their doctors. By
linking DNA to two of the three babies to the thirty-five-year-old mother, they
ascertained that she was the earliest recorded mother of triplets in Britain.
She must have died in childbirth. The second child couldn't get through the
birthing canal without aid, and the third remained inside her. The man buried
above her could have been her husband. In those days, a couple married for life
and supported each other into their dotage. He could have asked to be buried
close to her.
Has the human race grown too soft and
reliant on procedures to become pregnant and give birth? Could we survive
unaided now days?
What an interesting story. Thanks for sharing and no, I wouldn't have wanted to give birth without the knowledge that a fully equipped medical team was right there!
ReplyDeleteI agree. I would have died at 19 during the birth of my first without the medical team.
DeleteThis was interesting. I've often wondered the same but with diseases, you know. How did peeps back then survive viruses and bacterial infections? It had to be good nutrition. Something here in the States most people lack.
ReplyDeleteHugs and chocolate,
Shelly
Good food and natural cures, like herbs, I think.
DeleteHi Francene .. I saw that episode a while ago .. I love those reconstructions - they make fascinating watching ..
ReplyDeleteCheers Hilary
I love them too. We can learn so much from the past.
DeleteThey kind of tackled this question in the third season episode of "The Walking Dead" where Lori dies. She has to have a c-section and can't survive it in the post-apocalyptic world. So yeah...we needs medical procedures.
ReplyDeleteI guess only the strong survived to pass their genes on to us.
DeleteInteresting. And to that, I think most likely no. However, there is thought that we have become so healthy that childbirth could be easier as we could sustain and fight off infection better as well as the baby.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure we are healthier than we were back 500 years ago. They passed their strength from generation to generation.
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