Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica

Abstract

Childbirth may have been the most important experience of women in traditional society. The behaviors and their interpretations before, during and after the delivery not only indicated medical development of a certain period, but also revealed women‘s place in the patrilineal society. From late antiquity to early medieval China, it was gradually agreed in medical texts that the process of childbirth started from the last month of pregnancy and lasted at least till one month after the delivery.
In the last month of pregnancy, the expecting mother was advised to take herbal medicine to enhance a quick and safe delivery, while her family should prepare a place for the childbirth according to the “delivery charts”. The exact month for pregnant women to take such medicine varied in ancient medical texts, but was fixed to the last month of pregnancy by the eighth century. There may have been separate charts that demonstrated proper locations and directions of the delivery tents, the squatting positions, and the placenta-burying. By the eighth century, however, medical texts indicated an integration of all these items in one chart that included twelve sub-charts for each month of the year. 
Women usually took vertical positions, most often squatting, during delivery, either clinging to fastened ropes or being supported under the arms by midwives. Methods to solve complications such as breech included ritual techniques and manual manipulations. Such methods often implied the father‘s importance in delivery and the resonant relations between him, his wife and her baby. Male-authored medical texts after the six century sometimes accused female attendants of hasty and unnecessary interventions. Nevertheless,  deliveries were usually handled successfully by women, including the pregnant mother, her female relatives and the midwives. 
During the month right after the delivery, the new mother would be restrained from social contact, both due to the need of care and the concept of pollution. Although she was considered polluting, either for her shedding blood in the delivery or for her changed role from wife to mother, the seclusion did give her a chance to rest. Friends and relatives then would bring over precious and nutritious food to “nourish her body”, said the medical texts, “not just to celebrate the child”.