Before OBGYNs, stirrups, and forceps, there were wise women, herbal remedies, and soft touches. The procedures which we now view as “normal” in the birth world are actually a fairly recent addition to the patriarchal and medical model of modern industrial birth, and they do not center or serve women. In this episode, we answer the question: “How did women possibly survive childbirth before men and hospitals came on the scene?!” Historian Ana Sabrina walks us back a couple hundred years before men came to “deliver” women from the “pathology” of childbirth. Settle in, and listen with open ears. If we know our roots, we can rise into our future.

Connect with Ana Sabrina on Instagram: @anasabrina.b

On women as healers before male care was the norm- “The Healer’s Calling: Women and Medicine in Early New England”

On the history of abortion, miscarriage, and stillbirth- “The Myth of the Perfect Pregnancy”

On the systematic medical rape of enslaved black women in the American south- “Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology”

The Radical Birth Keeper School starts again September 1st, 2021. You won’t want to miss it: https://www.freebirthsocietycourses.com/radicalbirthkeeper

Check out more of Free Birth Society’s courses and offerings! 

https://www.freebirthsocietycourses.com