In the interests of regaining my momentum on German, when even yelling by cahn isn't doing the trick :(, I'm going to try recounting one fact from my daily reading, even if my daily reading doesn't meet a quota.
Today's fact(s) from the childbearing world: childbirth was in a transitional phase, when learned physicians were trying to take it out of the hands of superstition and midwives and turn it into a science. MT was surprisingly on board with this! (This would backfire starting in a few decades, because more doctors + more instruments = more chances to infect your patient, oops.) She was like, "No amulets for me! I have a doctor, and he's been to the university and has written pamphlets."
She was *also* like, "And there will not be a debate about childbirth techniques among different schools of thought. There will be one opinion, and it will be the opinion of the guy I hired, and it will be disseminated downwards in strict hierarchical manner. He is the Pope of childbirth!" (paraphrased)
So she sends her grown children doctors who went to the school of her guy, and she got upset when her children would listen to other people or have opinions of their own. She strictly told one of her sons not to allow anyone unauthorized in the birthing room, and never to let a third party hear him express his own views on childbirthing to the doctor she sent.
Semi-enlightened, as Stollberg-Rilinger says.
One change that was in transition during this period was that women were moving from the traditional method of giving birth sitting/squatting over a birthing stool, to the doctor-approved method of giving birth lying in bed. MT gave birth to some of her kids one way, others the other way.
People went to great lengths to get their weak-looking babies baptized before they could die unbaptized and go to limbo. (Where their souls were subject to manipulation by witches who could summon them as revenants into this world.) Some midwives squirted water into the womb! Some parents took their dead babies to a church that would perform "miracles," and momentarily bring the baby back from the dead, conveniently just long enough to baptize it.
Because it's not traumatic enough to have just lost a baby, you have to also worry about it ending up in limbo and being used for witchcraft.
Because birth was a very public affair, there was protocol even when the baby died. When MT gave birth to a baby that died moments after it was born--they officially claimed that it survived long enough to be baptized, but much like FS, we have reason to doubt this--she had her guy in charge of protocol research what to do now. And he found that, since the baby had died, there would be no 3 days of festivities, but because the mother had survived, there would be one day of festivities.
MT, for what Stollberg-Rilinger calls "understandable reasons," vetoed even one day of celebrating after she had lost a baby. But apparently the orders the court received were contradictory, and so no one knew what clothes to wear. This led the guy in charge of protocol to complain that there was Not Enough Protocol at this court! (A recurring theme in his writings.)
Because it's not traumatic enough to have just lost a baby, you have to also worry about it ending up in limbo and being used for witchcraft.
OMG. My religion says explicitly (in the Book of Mormon) that infant baptism (in particular, the belief that unbaptized children go to limbo/hell) is an "abomination," which I always thought was really too strong but... now I can see how one might really have felt that way. The Book of Mormon was published in 1830, and I can't believe it never occurred to me to check the dates before but Joseph and Emma Smith lost a baby in 1828. (And lost others as well, but afterwards.) Ugh. :(
This led the guy in charge of protocol to complain that there was Not Enough Protocol at this court! (A recurring theme in his writings.)
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timeasmymeasure
Maria Theresia and childbirth
Date: 2021-03-28 11:00 pm (UTC)Today's fact(s) from the childbearing world: childbirth was in a transitional phase, when learned physicians were trying to take it out of the hands of superstition and midwives and turn it into a science. MT was surprisingly on board with this! (This would backfire starting in a few decades, because more doctors + more instruments = more chances to infect your patient, oops.) She was like, "No amulets for me! I have a doctor, and he's been to the university and has written pamphlets."
She was *also* like, "And there will not be a debate about childbirth techniques among different schools of thought. There will be one opinion, and it will be the opinion of the guy I hired, and it will be disseminated downwards in strict hierarchical manner. He is the Pope of childbirth!" (paraphrased)
So she sends her grown children doctors who went to the school of her guy, and she got upset when her children would listen to other people or have opinions of their own. She strictly told one of her sons not to allow anyone unauthorized in the birthing room, and never to let a third party hear him express his own views on childbirthing to the doctor she sent.
Semi-enlightened, as Stollberg-Rilinger says.
One change that was in transition during this period was that women were moving from the traditional method of giving birth sitting/squatting over a birthing stool, to the doctor-approved method of giving birth lying in bed. MT gave birth to some of her kids one way, others the other way.
People went to great lengths to get their weak-looking babies baptized before they could die unbaptized and go to limbo. (Where their souls were subject to manipulation by witches who could summon them as revenants into this world.) Some midwives squirted water into the womb! Some parents took their dead babies to a church that would perform "miracles," and momentarily bring the baby back from the dead, conveniently just long enough to baptize it.
Because it's not traumatic enough to have just lost a baby, you have to also worry about it ending up in limbo and being used for witchcraft.
Because birth was a very public affair, there was protocol even when the baby died. When MT gave birth to a baby that died moments after it was born--they officially claimed that it survived long enough to be baptized, but much like FS, we have reason to doubt this--she had her guy in charge of protocol research what to do now. And he found that, since the baby had died, there would be no 3 days of festivities, but because the mother had survived, there would be one day of festivities.
MT, for what Stollberg-Rilinger calls "understandable reasons," vetoed even one day of celebrating after she had lost a baby. But apparently the orders the court received were contradictory, and so no one knew what clothes to wear. This led the guy in charge of protocol to complain that there was Not Enough Protocol at this court! (A recurring theme in his writings.)
Re: Maria Theresia and childbirth
Date: 2021-04-01 04:31 am (UTC)OMG. My religion says explicitly (in the Book of Mormon) that infant baptism (in particular, the belief that unbaptized children go to limbo/hell) is an "abomination," which I always thought was really too strong but... now I can see how one might really have felt that way. The Book of Mormon was published in 1830, and I can't believe it never occurred to me to check the dates before but Joseph and Emma Smith lost a baby in 1828. (And lost others as well, but afterwards.) Ugh. :(
This led the guy in charge of protocol to complain that there was Not Enough Protocol at this court! (A recurring theme in his writings.)
Heh.