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 ...

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 ...

When the brick coffin of a young woman from medieval Italy was opened after its discovery in 2010, two peculiar things stood out to the researchers: There was a perfect hole in the frontal bone of her ...

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 ...

Researchers have made a rare discovery - a medieval woman who died while pregnant who also had early form of neurosurgery, as well as, a coffin birth. A young woman, who experts believe was between ...

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 ...

Our World in Data indicates that women tend to live longer than men. Across the globe, this “longevity gap” is a well-documented phenomenon. But this wasn’t always the case. Rewind the clock to the ...

Pregnancy and childbirth presented the medieval expectant mother with a whole host of challenges and dangers. Just as today, there was a lot of instruction on how a pregnant woman should behave to ...

Through modern science, the grim discovery of a Medieval woman's remains is able to tell the tale of a "coffin birth" and ancient brain surgery. Despite the macabre nature of the grim discovery of a ...

In the popular imagination, “medieval” and “women” aren’t always words which go together happily. Ideas about the lives of pre-Renaissance women tend to form two hazy stereotypes: an illiterate girl ...

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 ...