A rare strip of parchment more than 10 feet (3 meters) long and adorned with Christian emblems shows chemical traces of its use by women in medieval England as a magical amulet to protect them during ...

Analysis of stained c. 500-year-old manuscript provides direct evidence of wear and use during childbirth. Birthing girdles are thought to have been used in medieval society to protect the wearer ...

In medieval Europe, women feared childbirth. They had good reason: What would be considered simple deliveries today were fraught with dangers for both mother and child. Death and injury were common, ...

In medieval Europe, when childbirth was highly perilous for both mother and child, women and those caring for them used various talismans to try to influence a safe delivery. Not many of those relics ...

Images of 15th century sheepskin birthing girdles studied by Cambridge University researchers. The top-right image shows the hands and feet of Christ (i.e. the five wounds of Christ) dripping with ...

Expecting: Birth, Belief and Protection at London’s Wellcome Collection is a small but quietly powerful exhibition. Spanning five centuries, it explores how the experience of bringing life into the ...

Historian and author Helen Castor, presenter of the popular series She-Wolves, explores how the people of the Middle Ages handled the most fundamental moments of transition in life: birth, marriage ...

Childbearing in medieval Europe was a highly perilous time with considerable risks for both mother and baby. Difficulties occurring during childbirth or through postpartum infection, uterine prolapse ...