The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds - 90 - Childbirth in America

Episode Date: June 21, 2015

Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds examine childbirth over the years in America.SourcesTour DatesRedbubble MerchPatreon

When you're staying at an Airbnb you might be like me wondering could my place be an Airbnb and if it could what could it earn? You could be sitting on an Airbnb and not even know it. That in-law sweet guest house where your parents stay only part-time Airbnb it and make some money the rest of the year whether you could use a little extra money to cover some bills or for something a little more fun. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.ca slash host. Hey man, this is the dollop. Really? It's by the way the podcast about my marriage and

husband. Make sure you tell a story to my friend Grant Reynolds. Yeah, who has no idea what the topic is about. What's happening? I don't know what it's about. Is it because we just did that thing about Elvis that now you're... Yep, all fucked up. Listen, if you want to talk like Elvis for the podcast I'm fucking down. It's not really Elvis. It's just somewhere you're southern guy. Well, I'll do Elvis. Alright dude. God, do you want to look who to do? I'll do one bottle. People say this is funny. Not Gary Gara. Dave, okay. Someone or something is tickling people. Is it for fun? And this is not going to come to tickle you quite good. Okay. You are queen fakie of

made-up town. All hail queen shit of Liesville. A bunch of religious virgins go to mingle and do my thing. Hi, Gary. No. Is he dead, my friend? No. That has to be the weirdest. That's as weird as we could possibly go. I mean, can you just, for consistency, could you just shout what you just said? No date. Babies all the time, America. During the Middle Ages in Europe it was considered obscene for men to enter a delivery room. Women were helped during birth by midwaves or their family. It was considered obscene. Yeah. Okay. The male doctors of the time continue to write guidebooks for pregnant women based on advice handed down for several generations,

including myths, herbs, astrology, superstitions. Common thought was that angry mothers made ugly babies. Too much sex wears out the womb. Quote, whores have so seldom children since gratification gluts that womb. Okay. To have a boy, men were to drink wine with a pulverized rabbit's womb in it. Women drank wine with rabbit's testicles. Okay. I'm sorry. What's happening right now? This is just the Middle Ages in Europe. We're just geared up to get to America. So back then, if you want to have a boy, you would crush a rabbit's womb in a glass of wine. And if you're a lady, you would drink its nuts. Drink the rabbit's balls. Had time to be a rabbit. But it's science. Yeah. Yeah. You do have science on your side

with this one. Right. Yep. All right. Throughout the ages, doctors thought that during pregnancy, menstrual blood flowed upwards and became breast milk. So I mean, I understand that they didn't have access to a lot of facts. They're working off of theories. But very specific. Where else would breast milk come from? I mean, yeah, fair, fair, fair. Because they stopped menstruating when they're pregnant. So then where's that? Where's that? No, no, no, no. Now that you put it like that, it makes a lot of sense. Where's that juice go? To their tits. For sure. For milk. So thank you for clearing that up. And the purpose of the vagina was to be a quote, an anti chamber to lodge a man's yard. Okay, gonna. Can you

put that through the old Rosetta stone for me? It's just to take a dick. So a woman's vagina's purpose is to take a dick is to get fucked. Yes. Okay. And women had no reproductive organs themselves. They were just vessels. It's getting worse. A second century Greek doctor warned that men should satisfy their women since both men and women's orgasms were required for conception. I like the women were like, this guy, this guy, this guy's great. This guy's really, I think, is everyone listening to this guy? Listen to this guy. A British midwife in 1671 wrote about how penis size affects conception. Over 11 inches would spray the womb with seed. Less than six would be insufficient for fertilization. This boy.

That's a fucked up number. I mean, six is average, right? Yeah. Yeah. Six is average. So whoever's got a big dick, you just be fucking everybody. Yeah, no. I mean, it's like today. The book, quote, The Rose Garden for Pregnant Women and Midwives was published in 1513 and sold for 200 years as the definitive book on pregnancy and childbirth, even though it contained information from the Greeks from 100 AD. Oh, Jesus. That's all the way up until 1713. Jesus. Well, I mean, we also have the Bible, so let's not get too crazy. By the 1400s in European cities, midwives started to be educated and registered and forceps to pull the baby out came in to use before forceps. Dave, I'm just going to tell you right now.

I don't like before forceps starting a statement on the dollar. Why? Because it's just, I guess I've never mentally thought what was before forceps. Okay, get ready. Oh, God. Before forceps, babies stuck in the birth canal were killed by skull crushing. What? Or the mother's pelvis was broken to facilitate birth, killing her. And yet I wasn't prepared. Jesus. What else are you going to do? Yeah, what else are you going to do? Because previously women were the only ones present at births. Once male doctors or members of the barbers and surgeons guilds started to deliver babies for propriety's sake, they would deliver without watching a sheet spread from the mother to the doctor's neck. And he would work underneath

it. What? Why? Why? Why if you have access? Because you can't look. Why? At the vagina. Because it's a special place. So instead, you're just you fumble around with your hands. You're just I mean, yeah. What about getting a midwife instead? Yeah. Okay, now on to a man. Well, all right, let me put on the birthing sheet that takes away one of my senses. Native American tribes were here first, obviously, they thought that pregnant women should visualize only good and healthy thoughts in the pregnancy. Wouldn't it have been great if we just let them keep the course in the direction they were going? And really good. They were good hearted. And then we murdered all of them. We did. Okay. They thought you should be pregnant, pregnancy

specific foods. For example, the Cherokee remended abstaining from raccoon, speckled trout and black walnuts. I mean, sure, a little strange. A woman was encouraged to walk a lot in order to keep the baby small enough to pass through the pelvis and to keep her hips wide and open. One position that a woman never birthed in was laying down. Oh boy. Or lying down. Yeah. All had different birthing devices to help women in labor. These included ropes that were hung by tree branches, wooden blocks to squat on or stakes pound into the ground to press against and low birthstools to sit upon women would lay leaves under the mother's bottom and allow the baby to fall out onto the ground. Well, it sounds like they have

a much better plan than just crushing a skull when it's not going according to plan. Many of the Native American tribes cherished the placenta or a umbilical cord. And many of the plains tribes, the newborn was presented with a small beaded pouch to contain the remnants of the umbilical cord stump. The childhood wear this throughout his lifetime. And many were buried with it. It's like you're wooby. Okay. So they've lost me. They've lost me when you're wearing the umbilical cord for the rest of your life as jewelry. What my necklace? Yeah, it smells just my cool necklace. I was born with it. Okay. More jerky. Oh fuck. In the early days of colonial America, childbirth was practiced almost exclusively by poorly

regulated midwives who very greatly experienced skill, cleanliness, integrity and sobriety. Was it issue? Yeah. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm not pregnant. What's going on? I just asked where the bathroom was. Someone else. It was a lowly part time job that no one with an educated would take. The first recorded midwife was Bridget Lee Fuller who delivered three babies while on the Mayflower. Not until 1716 was legislation enacted for the regulation of midwifing midwifery stating quote, that she will be diligent and ready to help any woman in labor whether rich or poor. She will not claim any other woman's child for her own. That's a rule. My dibs dibs came out. Sorry, it looked at me first. It thinks I'm

the mother dibs. It's like a duck that she will not suffer any woman's child to be murdered or hurt. What these rules, these rules, a couple things, don't steal the baby, don't kill the baby. These rules are they're no brainers. They're very simple, easy rules. Sure. Yeah. Don't eat the baby when it comes out that she will not administer any medicine to produce miscarriage. What she will not collude to keep secret the birth of a child. What is going on? What's happening that she will be of good behavior and she will not conceal the birth of bastards? It's what we got a father. These rules are insane. Well, that's what happened when government gets involved, man. No, no, that's what happens

when morality gets involved. In 1762, Dr. William Shippen of Philadelphia became the first American male physician to establish a normal obstetric baby medicine practice in the US. The year was 1762. So he was the first obstetrician in America. Okay. Okay. Medical schools incorporated his education in the curriculum. Physicians in the US organized the American Medical Association in 1847 and passed laws regulating who could practice medicine. They nearly put an end to the practice of midwivery as physicians went after the business of caring for pregnant women. A busy rural midwife in the early 1900s was estimated to make 678 compared to the physician at the time who made 730 a year. So it was money,

but it was also more sanitary to have a baby in a hospital. Okay. The significance of hand washing in patients care was realized in the 1830s. I mean, it's really hard mentally to go there to picture a time when they were they were delivering babies without washing their head. And they just, yeah, go ahead and put it right in my mud mitt. Ah, why? Yeah. No, that was I had chicken before. Go ahead and toss it in. Anyway, all the whole shit out here. Oh, let me help you with that baby. If you're going to sneeze, sneeze on a vagina. I've been picking up dough with me hands. Now let's put a baby in them. All right. Yeah. So it was real gloves. It was realized in the 1830s because per pearl fever and infection

of the Eurus in some areas it killed almost 20% of postnatal women. Scientists in the US noted that medical students who move straight from autopsy rooms to the delivery suite who's do who's making that switch? Who's working both those angles on the same shift? Sorry, continue, sir. Students who move from autopsy rooms to the delivery suite at a higher maternal mortality rate from the fever and concluded that some quote unknown cadaverous material cost it. I am shocked, honestly, that the that the connection was not made from them that they're like, if you touch death, you'll make more death. Now hold on. Now hold on. Okay, so now there's a woman in there that just died from the fever. Yes. And Billy was

in there going rubbing down rubbing down that body and whatnot. Yes. And then he came in right and he delivered the baby. Yes. And then the mom and dad right of the fever. Yes. I can't figure it out. He caught death. Yes, somehow, somehow. Yeah, it didn't don't make sense. So they're in I wish there was some connected. Yeah. Anyway, let's go touch those bodies. Let's get in and then get the babies out and rub that shit down. By the end of the 1800s policies were instituted for hand washing and also for not performing autopsies while caring for pregnant women. Oh my God, the rule these rules, these rules are just insane. Like if it was today, this is the this the equivalent of this rule is don't

try to suck your own dick on the bus. Please you guys don't shit in your mouth. Hey guys, we're just we're making some rules. Don't punch your mom on her birthday. Just some new just in case you didn't know. But there was resistance from who as one off situation noted quote, doctors are gentlemen and gentlemen's hands are clean. Get the fuck out. I mean, what a day what a little dainty man. The early methods of disinfection included vaginal chloral douches and strict scrubbing of the genital area and physician's hands. Yeah, I mean, thank you for this time. In early American colonial days, women gave birth in the boarding room, often a small room separated from the living areas. Some women used birthing

stools that helped the women squat down to deliver the midwife would kneel down to receive the baby, the mother's long skirts preserving her modesty. Pepper under the nose was commonly used to help sneeze the baby out sneeze the baby out before the Mars. American women in the 18th the 19th centuries had on average seven live births during their lifetimes and potentially a large number of undocumented miscue. Wait, that was the average woman seven kids. That doesn't mean the kids would live. But yeah, seven live births. Jesus. Yeah. Colonial author wrote conception means your death has entered into you. And women's diaries and letters reveal the considerable time women spent preparing for the pain and realistic

possibility of dying in childbirth. One 19th century woman wrote, it is not strange that she should tremble and shrink at the thought of that Valley of the shadow of death, which soon she must enter. What's just getting ready for having a baby. Anyway, what's a dinner? Hungry. Another woman wrote about her birth. Between oceans of pain, they're stretched continents of fear, fear of death and a dread of suffering beyond bearing. Well, so why so. So what what is the allure of having babies then? I think you had to have babies. You just had to farm. Yeah, right. That's how it works. Plus, I don't think there's a lot of contraception rolling around. No, but I mean, you know, we've always got the method.

Pull out method. Do you know how it works? The pull out method. Just how making babies worse. Yeah. Hey, that's a good way to go. I'm saying at the time, I mean, it's better than fucking it's better than ticket and spraying the womb or whatever they're calling it. Yeah. Yeah, I would rather spray the room than spray the womb. That's my bumper sticker. If if I'm in that time, I'm running on that. Spray the room. Don't spray the womb. First of all, they didn't have bumper stickers. There are no cars. There was no adhesive, you know, horse, horse phrases. If you can see me, I time travel back to that time to only to be like, they don't have bumpers. Fuck. For centuries, pain and childbirth was considered

a woman's heavenly duty. In 1591 in Europe, a woman named Euphamie McClain was burned at the stake for asking for pain relief during birth. Oh my God. No, just drink some of this rabbit testicle wine. In the US, it was believed that middle and upper class women were predisposed to experience more pain. A Harvard doctor wrote quote, the American woman brought up with every luxury and little to do except amuse and take care of herself arrives at maturity at delicate and weekly specimen. It is their force of the utmost importance to convince her that her tears are groundless, that pregnancy is not a state of infirmity or danger, that the few instances she may have known of miscarriage or death were owing to the improper conduct

of women themselves. What is his theory? I think he just said that he's just saying he just said that you should tell women it's not a big deal. And if they do die or have a problem, it's their fault. I appreciate what he said. Harvard. Aim high. It's Harvard. So what's going on at the shitty schools? But of course, women's fears of childbirth were grounded. One didn't have a serious chance of dying. Of those who did survive and didn't just skip away having a great time, there were plenty of medical problems after giving birth. Okay, many women sought out ways to have miscarriages. But there were doctors on the horizons, doctors who had changed the way things were. Jay Marion Sims was born

in 1813 in Lancaster County, South Carolina to a somewhat respectable family. At age 20, he chose to study medicine. And upon graduation in 1835, he went back to Lancaster County to establish a practice. He was anxious about starting a medical practice with little actual experience. And sure enough, he lost his first two patients, infant children afflicted by persistent diarrhea. Deciding his luck might change. Elsewhere, he moved to Alabama in October 1835. Yeah, I was just gonna say geography is probably the issue. Look, man, if babies are dying, get out of there. Yeah, move. You know, they say, yeah, you'll be a better doctor if you just move. Just keep on the run. Just keep moving and you'll become a great doctor.

He struggled for a year on able to cure most ailments. Then he had a patient come in with severe abdominal pain. It looked like liver abscess to the doctor who convinced the who knew nothing who convinced the patient to undergo surgery without anesthesia. That's a tough sell. Hey, man, I just want to cut in there, you know, just get in there and see what that's all about. All right, I trust you. What, um, what should I take? Yeah, nothing. You're gonna feel it all. You're gonna feel it all. You're gonna tell me how. Can I see a degree of some kind? Is there any sort of? I'm open. I'm open. After the surgery, Dr. Sims wrote, I think it was one of the happiest moments of my life when I saw the pus flow

and come welling up opposite that bus three. He was happy when he saw the pus. Yeah. Yeah. No, I get it. He's fucking weird. So obviously there were good times. Wait, I'm sorry. Watching the pus. He, he, is that it? What? He just got excited because he saw the pus. Yeah, he was he was vindicated. Yeah, when you see pus coming out of a liver, you're like, Oh, man, I was right. Now you should help. You shouldn't be like, get the champagne, get the champagne. Don't say anything about whether or not that guy lived. I don't think the man did. Because the happiest day of his life would be when he saved that man from well, that ailment. That's a secondary. Sure. In 1840, Sims moved with his young family to

Montgomery and he struggled there. He made very little money and they lived hand to mouth. But he did begin to make a name for himself as a respectable physician. He boasted of being the first doctor in the South to successfully treat clubfoot and cross eyes. We still can't treat cross eyes. But how many people are like, is there enough cross side? Are there enough cross side people to be like, I'm the number one name and cross out fixing? Oh, back then it was 50%. 50% of people shut the fuck up. What was it more? I don't know. Oh my God, 50% would be amazing. Okay, so now what does childbirth have to do with Dr Sims? As I stated before, women who survived childbirth frequently suffered from lifelong miseries

such as a collapsed uterus. One woman suffering from uterine prolapse five months after delivery wrote she can only walk a few steps at a time and cannot sit up all day. One physician noted, the widespread mutilation is so common indeed that we scarcely find a normal perineum after birth. Another problem was fistulums from unrepaired tears, a whole develops between a woman's bladder and her vagina and leads to constant uncontrollable urinary incontinence or a whole develops between the vagina and the rectum. That obviously leads to other bad stuffs. Yeah, yeah. The fistula is then like knocking a wall down just to make a room bigger. Well, it's like it's like combining your living room and your septic tank. Well

done. The fistula is then led to secondary problems infertility loss of vaginal function due to extensive scarring, damage to the pubic bones, recurring pelvic and urinary tract infections, horribly diminished self-esteem, damaged body image, and not infrequently severe depression and even suicide. Sounds like a pill commercial. It really does. Yeah. In the latter part of 1845, Dr Sims was referred a young female slave named Anarcha, who suffered from vesicovaginal fistula due to her protracted labor. She's got one of the holes in her vagina. She's got the extra. The audience wanted to go through the rectum, but I could be wrong. Anyway. Sims quickly pronounced her incurable and was about to send her back

when something awesome happened. When we're talking awesome in this world, it's not awesome. Something awesome happened. A middle-aged woman was thrown from our horse. Hooray! Sims was called to examine her. She had sustained. And he goes right for her vagina. Sir, doctor, doctor. Get my hands in here. Doctor. Now that she came off the horse. She hit her head, doctor. She hit her. She did. I'll get down here. Doctor. Oh boy. Doctor. Oh boy. Doctor. That was you. So he examined her. She had sustained a pelvic injury. His initial examination suggested uterine malpositions as the cause of her pain. Okay. She had, he had her squat on her knees and elbows in the bed. Excuse me, doctor. To a better, I guess I think the

right phrase is get in there. Yeah. He wanted, yeah. He then introduced both his forefinger and middle finger into her vagina. And immediately the pelvic organs relaxed and the woman experienced relief. What? You're telling me she just needed to get fingered? I mean, I don't know exactly what happened. But yeah, that's what it sounds like. I'm sure that's what he wrote up in the medical journal. I fingered her to life. Fingering to health. What was his, what was his angle though? He thought this would happen or he was straight up just think that he thought that trying to get a stinky pinky news. I don't think that was the technical term. Okay. I think that he thought that maybe there was a muscle thing and if he just just fuck with

it a little bit, it would go back into place. Fucking. Okay. This experience led Sims to an epiphany. I love vaginas fingering gentlemen. He could use the same unconventional position to examine and treat his patient with the fistula. So he's like, Oh my God, they can all get on there. I just need to start fingering these women. That same day, he bent a spoon into a crude instrument and introduced it into the vagina of another slave patient named Betsy. And according to his account, quote, I saw everything as no man has ever seen before. Like it's Atlantis. I've seen it. I've seen inside. I like what I see. I'm on a ride. That's the doctor has been fingering everyone. He's spinning around a lamp post. He modified

his speculum and began to design instruments for this condition. Within three months, he is ready to try the new techniques on his first slave patient, anarcha, as well as another half dozen female slaves with similar fistulas. So back then, like female slaves were basically lab rats. Yeah, right. He set them up in a small hospital building beside his home making arrangements with their masters while they were under his care. So I'm going to be fingering your slaves for about a couple of weeks. I just want to make sure you guys are cool and sign off on that. All right, I've bent some spoons. Yeah, I was out in the street singing. I put some forks in there. I've got a whole thing. I'm doing a whole thing. I'm working

with a ladle. I'm trying to incorporate that. Anyway, any who's will be some called his little hospital a shock. Modern day gynecology owes quite a bit to slavery. The slave owners wanted to control the breeding of their slave women as Congress had outlawed the importation of slaves in 1808. Many doctors sold their services directly to slaveholders sometimes for a yearly flat rate with the promise that they could regulate the slaves fertility. Black women's value was based on their breeding ability. Rewards followed the birth of children such as extra clothing exemption from harsh treatment and rarely freedom. So between late 1845 and the summer of 1849, Dr. Sims carried out repeated operations on slave women. Anarcha, who had

a difficult combination of vaginal and recto vaginal fistulas, underwent 30 operations. 30? Yeah. Oh my God. When Sims examined Anarcha one week after her 30th century, he found no inflammation and a very perfect union of the little fistula. Sims had found success. For those four years, he treated many slaves in his little hospital shack thing. Then he got diarrhea and had to move. Uh huh. What? Excuse me, his bowels? Like it's a different time. What? He got diarrhea and had to move. He came down with a chronically ill diarrhea illness and traveled extensively to find the right combination of climate water and food to improve his health. What? This was a time when if you got diarrhea, you had to go on

the run. Maybe that's why it's called the run. It is, yeah. You had to just get out of town. Ah, it sucks too. I was just getting settled here. Then my tummy got upset. Man, we haven't seen Barney in weeks. He got the shit. Yeah. You heard about Barney, right? He got the shit. He's in Connecticut. He had to move. He published his account of fistula repair in the Journal of American Medical Sciences. He eventually moved to New York City in 1853. There in 1855 came the establishment of the women's hospital, a hospital exclusively for the treatment of female disorders. By this time, Sims was over his diarrhea and became the leading surgeon of the hospital. There's a lot of disagreement about whether Sims was

considered the father of gynecology was a villain or a hero. The pro argument says Sims patients had a condition that was incurable and they had two choices. Live with it or they could agree to undergo experimental surgery. Oh, there we go. That might offer them some relief or even a total cure. But since they were slaves, they actually had no say in the matter. So they're basically cadavers. Well, they're not, they don't have say over themselves. So their owner would be like, yeah, go ahead. Go ahead and how to tour around. You know what? She breathing as it is. So go ahead and just get in there and have a John and see what you can do. Yeah, throw a spoon up there. Do what you do, doc. No, spoon fork, whatever

it takes. Hey, congratulations on shaking the diarrhea. Oh, thanks, man. It's got to be great. Man, I spent a lot on train tickets. I'll tell you. I'll tell you. But the diarrhea express is a great train. If you ever get a chance, I will not go on that. Oh, and also Sims didn't use anesthesia. Oh, good. Good. 30 surgeries about anesthesia. What a pleasure. And it's just your vagina. It's not like that's a sense. No, no, no, there's not a lot of nerve endings there. In a lecture at the hospital in 1857, he said, I never resort to the use of anesthetics in the fistula operations because they're not painful enough to justify the trouble. Says a man who doesn't have a vagina. Trust me, doesn't hurt him. It's like elbow

skin. And trust me, if it hurts, I'll just finger you a little bit. Don't worry. Listen, a vagina is like elbow skin. Now let me finger you to health. Now there was relief around childbirth a bit. But again, there were disagreements about whether or not women should be in pain. Who is who is Khan religion? Oh, here we go. In 1847, Dr. Samuel Kubot wrote, I consider the question settled. Etherization suspends sensibility. Labor goes on, but it is not perceived. It is without pain. There are doubters and there are clergymen who say it is a violation of the curse of God to mitigate or remove human suffering. But what is this God's problem? Well, God wants women to be in horrific pain. He just

make children. He couldn't sound and I'm I made it that way. I am for I am for a God. Okay. I am for it. I want there to be that. Okay. Now if and he just is a dick. Well, no, he's not a dick, but he made a baby big and a vagina small because the woman can suffer. Yeah. Okay. God wanted. Yeah, right. Okay. I'm a dude. Yeah. You know, not a lot of skin in this case. Yeah, no. Yeah, exactly. Well, my work here is done. I've told someone what they feel when I have no empathy towards them. Look, as a gentleman and a man who enjoys God, I say that women have to suffer. I'll get you guys around. We finally finished the theory and the theory is and it's taken a while is that a woman's vagina is supposed

to experience pain. Any numbing of that is a sin. Now let's go to the saloon and fucking celebrate. Okay. So now we're reached the 1900s. Things are getting gradually better. Fewer women are dying. More post childbirth elements are curable or repairable and people are starting to understand it's better to be cleaner. But at turn 20th century, rubber gloves were used. A rubber sheet was placed under the patient for discharges and shaving of the genital area was standard. Physicians pressed for antisepsis in home birthing rooms. But then they began to encourage patients to come to hospitals for truly sterile births because because people are grown because your baby will live and people are fucking. Yeah.

One doctor discussed birth birth and a working class home. You find a bed that has been slept on by the husband wife and one or two children. It is frequently been soaked with urine. The sheets are dirty. The patient's garments are soiled. She has not had a bath. Instead of sterile dressings, you have a few old rags or the discharges are allowed to soak into a nightdress, which has not been changed for days. Oh my God. What? Who's pissing the bed this much? Urine soaked? Look, it was a different time. You just couldn't stop pissing? What are you going to do? Go outside? Yeah. Yeah. You'll go outside.

Yeah. It's like when you got to wake up in the night to take a piss. So kids piss the bed because they're little kids, right? Yeah. So the kids are pissing the bed and then no one's taking the bath. Yeah. Okay. So then that's it. All right. All right. Cool. Yeah. Well, hey, who needs to bathe when you've pissed all over yourself? It's all about moisture. There are other signs of progress though. From an ad from the San Francisco call in 1910. Okay. Is the start coming? Will you have to undergo the ordeal of childbirth?

The strength of your child depends on your own health. Papsed extract, combining the nutritive and tonic properties of rich barley malt and the choices hops contains the very elements needed in this trying time. It furnishes abundant nourishment for the growing child, inducing restful sleep, and it's sharing vigorous health to both. Now, what is it? I think, is it? Childbirth beer? Is it beer? It's beer. It's beer. It's pregnancy beer. The only beer to drink when you're

pregnant. When you're having a baby, get ripped. Oh, that is. Let's turn it leaves. Smart. Very smart. It's smart. It's a world without rules. You really could just think outside the box. Yep. I'm just going to make a beer for pregnant women and say that the babies need it. The ladies were certainly for a calmer childbirth. Beer began to spread of a process in Germany that was catching on.

Two country dogs. Never, never good. Two country dogs. You know, there's something, there's some real different thinking coming out of Germany that's catching fire. I'm nervous already. So these two country doctors come up with something called Twilight Seat, which allowed for, quote, painless babies.

Painless babies. The two doctors are ridiculed by the medical profession in Germany, but soon the rich were flocking to their small town for the procedure. Okay. Sound good? Well, I don't know anything yet. And I'll be honest. Yeah, it does sound good.

In 1912, an American woman named Miss Stewart gave birth to a child in the clinic and described her experience as a fairy tale. Okay. A luxury room, compassionate doctor, sleeping through the birth, wonderful food, mountain view, like a beautiful hotel, she said. She stayed for a month. That's great. In 1913, two American reporters from McClure's magazine, Marguerite Tracy and Constant Lipp,

went to the German town to see the procedure, but they weren't allowed in. No one in the clinic would speak to them. So they sent in a pregnant undercover spy who used Twilight Seat sleep, and she loved it. What is Twilight Sleep? That's the thing that came up with. Oh, it's just... It's the name of the procedure.

But the procedure is just being nice to them? You'll see. We haven't heard the... Okay. The article about the awesomeness of Twilight Sleep was printed and feminists were pissed. Oh boy. The medical establishment controlled by men had withheld the miracle of Twilight Sleep for women.

What the fuck is it? Basically, it's a mixture of two drugs. Okay. All right. So Twilight Sleep is... Jesus Christ. Okay. What are these drugs?

Morphine and skull polamine, creating a state in which the woman while responding to pain did not remember it after delivery. So they just give her heroin? Okay. Well, I mean, they... Basically. I mean, they knock her out. And then they just...

And she's in pain, but she just doesn't remember the pain. So all of these women now in the States have heard about it, and they want it. Of course. All hell breaks loose. And the feminists and the anti-feminists got together while all on board. Oh, wow. Well, that's good that it's Calvinizing. The National Twilight Sleep Association was formed.

From 1914 to 1915, the National Twilight Sleep Association advocated relentlessly for physicians and women to adopt Twilight Sleep. Twilight Sleep. In the words of Ms. Carmody, one of the founders, quote, the Twilight Sleep is wonderful. But if you women want it, you have to fight for it, for the mass of doctors are opposed to it. It became the second biggest topic in the US, second to the World War I. Carmody was a big champion staging huge rallies in stores, squares, and churches.

Okay. Now, why were the doctors against it? Well, first of all, because it was a combination of morphine and scopolomy. And secondly, this is going to be the real reason. You had to restrain women. You had to... Changes in straight jackets. What?

And stuff like that. Why? Because they would thrash about because it's childbirth. But they're drugged. What is the point then? They're harder to manage? They don't remember. I don't understand why.

What's the upside to this? The women don't remember. So that's it? So they don't realize how horrible it was. So okay. So they're still using barbaric techniques when it comes to labor. By barbaric. Well, you know, not washing their hands and sometimes...

No, now they're starting to wash their hands. It's the 1900s, so they're washing their hands. So it sounds like it's gotten better. So why are we... Why... Because childbirth is painful and horrible, so these women... So these guys created this thing where these women get knocked out and then they come to and they have a baby and they think it's awesome.

Okay. All right. I don't think I'm going to get the closure I want. Dr. Bertha Van Hoosen was a huge advocate. She believed that, quote, painless childbirth will eradicate prostitution, abortion, divorce, illness, venereal disease, and sexual excess in marriage. Jesus Christ. I mean, she's taken it a little bit far.

Sexual excess in marriage. How dare you fuck too much? She began using it in her Chicago practice. But while some women slept through labor, others became hysterical. Good. Van Hoosen developed a canvas crib-like bed to cage the men. All right. Cage them in?

Okay. Getting to cage is time for your baby, Megan. Excuse me? Go ahead and get in the cage now. You're going to make a- No, no, no. I think there's been a mistake. I'm here to have a baby.

Yeah. That's the baby cage. Baby cage is a tough- Go ahead and get in the cage. We're going to strap you down. You're going to make a baby. Okay. The press raved about Twilight Sleep but medical literature continued to report the problems

asphyxia, agitation, morphine slowed contractions, headaches, thirst, uncontrollable delirium requiring restraints and straight jackets. Good. And hallucinations. Jesus Christ. Some hospitals tried it and abandoned it within months, yet women kept insisting on it. Champions of Twilight Sleep, like Mrs. Carmody, insisted that the side effects stem from incompetence. The popular press excluded details of violent kicking, thrashing, screaming, the caged animal

behavior, and depressed newborns. So the newborns are being born like they were on drugs. Yeah. I was going to say, there has to be, like, you can't make a baby's first, like, actual entry into this universe be fucking junked out. So the baby comes out, you know, they try to make a baby cry now? Yeah. Slavits, they take it on the hit of the baby's leg, whoo.

Yeah. Yeah. The baby's just like, can you get more of that shit? You know what? This isn't a problem. This is all, this is all great. So your baby's alive and I think a beatnik. But man, it's just like everything's cool and the lights are nice.

He just keeps asking for bongos. Oh, I like it out here. Hey, man. Want some bongos? Hey, man, could I get some bongos, man? Fuck. I want to see the sun, right? Dude, I'm dying for the sun and pancakes, bro.

So their information came from accounts of patients like Mary Boyd and Mrs. Carmody who had no memory of their births. Oh, it was heaven. Articles implied that women drifted to sleep after one shot and awake and refreshed. Mm-hmm. 12 to 24 hours later with a healthy child. The demand for Twilight Sleep was unstoppable. With the loss of clients who were switching to doctors offering the method, hospitals

began scrambling together Twilight Sleep units. Then in August, 1915, Ms. Carmody died while giving birth to her third child under the influence of Twilight Sleep. So she had Twilight Death. Is it Twilight? Super sleep. Twilight Eternal Sleep. It's a non-stop Twilight Sleep.

Within 15 months, Twilight Sleep was pretty much gone. Jesus. But Twilight Sleep had changed how obese were perceived, how they treated birth, and how American women experienced it. In 1900, 5% of women gave birth in a hospital, but by 1930, about half of all women and 75% of those in cities gave birth in a hospital. Yeah. Twilight Sleep morphed.

The desire for painless childbirth led to hospital programs of heavy sedation. In the hospital, women had no input into the drugs and procedures they received. They would come in, be put into a room alone, restrained, and then given drugs. And they'd wake up later with a baby and wounds. Magic. And one more time? Wounds. Wounds?

Sorry? Yeah. Wounds. Wounds or wounds? Wounds with the restraints. One terrified woman wrote, months later, I would scream out loud and wake up remembering that lonely labor room and just feeling no one cared what happened to me. No one kind, reassuring word was spoken by a nurse or a doctor.

I was treated as if I was an inanimate object. Sweet. In 1958, an article titled Cruelty in Maternity Awards ran in Ladies Home Journal and described in detail... Now this has been going on for... For a long time. Decades. Yeah.

It described the details of tortures that go on in modern delivery rooms. A flood of women sent the magazine their own horror stories. I've seen patients with no skin on the wrist from fighting the straps on a nurse from Canada wrote. The straps. Just let a few husbands in the living room and watch them see what goes on there. I said one reader from Detroit, that's all it will take. They'll change it.

The Edamon claimed the whole thing was a horrible nightmare. But it still continued until the late sixties. Oh my god. Really? Yeah. Jesus. That's when more and more women began studying math and science and getting jobs as doctors. Well there's our problem right there.

They're in the blood. And then change began dragging mothers, began dragging mothers, drugging mothers during birth began to recede. Good. Then came the 1970s and the natural childbirth movement. There was a strong sentiment that women, not their health care provider, should be in charge of the labor experience. I mean, it's just when you hear in retrospect that things like that were revelations.

But also the toilet seat happened because the medical establishment was against it and the women fought. Yeah. True. The epidural came into fashion. Also proponents of natural childbirth like Dr. Lamaze developed programs to prepare women for childbirth. Mm-hmm.

They advocated non-medical interventions in childbirth, including no use of pain relief. Just like God wanted. Right? We're back there. We're fucking back here. Yeah. Going to an assistant, Dr. Lamaze consistently ranked the women's performance in childbirth from excellent to complete failure.

On the basis of their restlessness and screams. Ah. Okay. That's Lamaze. Okay. Those who failed were, he thought, themselves responsible because they harbored doubts or had not practiced sufficiently. Jesus.

So. Sounds like a dick. Fucking asshole. Yeah. It's like, that sounds like religion. You fail. You don't believe in God. That's what's wrong with you.

You fail. But I have a healthy baby. Yeah, but you're screened. You failed. Like a fucking animal. Yeah. Took you long enough. Oh, baby.

Oh, oh. Breathe the way I told you to, woman. Remember that. And Lamaze also said women who asked too many questions. Here we go. Someone's got a case of the question marks. We're certain to fail. Yeah, listen.

You and all your questions about childbirth and breathing. Do you know what you're talking about? Excuse me. Excuse me. What am I? What do I have? Cucko balls? Am I a man?

Yes. Okay. So why don't you just listen to me. All right. Stop with this. And if you want a boy, drink the wine with the rabbit balls. Yep. And a girl, the crushed womb wine.

Epidurals were first implemented in the early 1900s, but were not used for birth until the 1940s. From then until the 1960s, they were used sporadically and did not gain wide popularity until the 1970s. Yeah. Cuckoo. Yeah. So cut to today.

Yep. Born into the wild, the show featuring women giving birth unassisted in the great outdoors premiered on March 3rd, 2015. Oh, God. Even doulas and midwives are considered too much interference, too unnatural. They basically have a baby on leaves in some valley. So again, the Native American style. So now we've gone full circle.

Now the US spends more than any country on earth on maternal and newborn care, 111 billion. And we have a higher infant mortality rate than any of the other 27 considered wealthy countries. We are also the only developed country with an increasing maternal mortality rate. This is due to subpar prenatal care received by working class Americans. We now also find ourselves in the age of the C section. The first recorded survival of mother and baby from a C section was in 1500 in Switzerland. The operation was performed by a pig farmer.

Oh my God. Oh Jesus. It continued to be used for centuries as a last ditch attempt to save a baby from a dying mother, but not really well. For instance, from 1787 to 1876 in Paris, not a single woman survived the C section. Oh my God. So that's a bad. Yeah, it's not good.

It's a bad ratio of success. It's not good. It's a C minus section. It's very bad. In 1827, the first well-documented successful C section was performed by an Englishman, Dr. James Berry in Cape Town, South Africa. Bearless, barely five feet tall with a shrill voice, Dr. Berry served for 30 years in the British army, survived a duel, and eventually died of dysentery.

After his death, it was revealed that Dr. Berry was a woman. Jesus. So the first person to perform a well-documented C section was an imposter Dr. Woman. I don't think that's a mistake. Jesus. That's a dude. He's might have been a little careless. Yeah.

But advances in sterile surgery and antibiotics allow the C section rate to rise by 1991 reaching 22% of all American births. By 2007, more than 30% of all births in the US were cesarean deliveries. The World Health Organization has found that cesarean delivery rates, which exceed 15%, offer no population health benefits. So the reason for C sections is you want to do it for medical reasons. But if you're doing it over 50%, then it's not justified. So why is the C section rate in the US increasing?

Well, older women are having babies, and women are heavier. There's been a doubling of the obesity rates in 21 years. So heavier moms are likely to have bigger babies. In other words, you can't eat enough fast food to make your vagina bigger. It's not growing with you. To sum it up. The target's the same size. So because of the giant babies and the smaller vaginas, baby can't get out.

So they cut it out, and then there's more twins and triplets now. And now most breech babies are delivered with C sections, which wasn't the case before. It used to be that they would keep turning and making the baby. Well, and it used to be even worse. Now they just cut that bad boy out. Right. Yeah, they don't spend it anymore. But doctors used to know how to do it, and now a lot of doctors don't even.

They just go right to the cut. Then there's the convenience. Parents want to know when to leave their job, when to show up for delivery, when to arrange childcare. And I see now, well, no, like, obviously we're living in that time, but that's totally a thing that in 60 years, two shithead comedians can do a podcast laughing about. I mean, you know, the idea that you're like, well, I've got to have the baby at four, and we've got golf at six.

Got to hit the club at eight. In our hospital in Los Angeles, our doctor told us, because our doctor is known for getting babies out, the vagina. Uh-huh. As a matter of fact, when she signs up on the board, all the nurses fight over. They want to go to her. Because she's not going to cut it out. Yeah.

It's actually going to be a real thing. But she said that C-section, the rooms are booked every day from 10 to noon and two to four because the doctors don't want to get up too early and they want to be home for dinner. What the fuck? Have lunch. Oh. Uh, a C-section also means if you're a doctor, you're not getting a call in the middle of

the night. And some hospitals now have C-section rates over 50%. Jesus Christ. So what's next? What the fuck is next? How about stadium shows? Oh, God. October 2011.

Wait, wait. I don't want a woman. Wait. I don't want to go to the internet and is now the proud mother of a healthy baby boy. She gave birth while more than 2,000 people watched online. That's not a lot. Yeah. But last 2000.

But yeah. So who knows what? Oh. There's going to be a childbirth. There's going to be a live childbirth channel online. Right? How do you feel about it? So I think that C-sections are the new Twilight sleeper.

I mean, it's not bad, but we're going to look back and go, oh, what do you fucking do? So really, America has just gone from one sort of fucking hideous childbirth thing in the night. Yeah. We've really just swung the other end of the spectrum. Yeah. What? Fucking.

Oh, my God. What? My fucking phone was on the cord. What does that mean? But there doesn't look like anything, either. That's what you call it.