Birthing Couch

Birthing Couch

One of many ways women gave birth in the nineteenth-century, the birthing couch was featured in George Englemann’s Labor Among Primitive Peoples: Showing the Development of the Obstetric Science of To-day, from the Natural and Instinctive Customs of All Races, Civilized and Savage, Past and Present, originally published in 1883.

From George Englemann’s 1883 Labor Among Primitive Peoples:

“. . . two old-fashioned, straight-backed, slip-bottom chairs made the lounge, one chair erect the other turned down ; a few old comforters upon this framework completed a very comfortable couch ; the husband took his seat first, astride, the wife reclining in his arms, where she remained until labor was completed, unless there was much delay, in which case the patient was walked about or assumed any other position as dictated by fancy or impulse; the position of the accoucheur [male midwife] was upon an inverted half-bushel measure, so placed the he sat just between the limbs of the patient. Labor was completed the soiled clothes were changed and the patient was placed in bed. This position was certainly not a bad one for all parties with the exception of the husband, who, in tedious cases, suffered rather severely; but then this little tax on his affectionate nature was, in those days, considered the very least return he could make for the mischief he had occasioned.”

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