From squatting to lying down: The fetish of King Louis XIV who condemned women’s childbirth. The first steps towards the adoption of the horizontal position (lying down) as the preferred position during childbirth were taken in modern times. They begin with King Louis XIV, who had a particular fascination with seeing women give birth. In France in the mid-17th century, he incorporated that position in the births of his children and spread the methodology around the world.
Historically, this position was only reserved for cases in which there were complications and doctors needed to perform some type of surgery. After the intervention of King Louis XIV, horizontal birth is currently the form adopted by most professionals. of health that attends births.
The real reasons why women give birth are lying down
Birth in alternative positions is now practiced in many hospitals, and has several advantages; squatting, kneeling, or leaning on your hands and knees, instead of lying on your back… X-rays have shown that the pelvic outlet widens when you squat or stand on your hands and knees, which helps shorten labor. However, for a long time, the only way for women to give birth was lying down. The reason for this trend is with King Louis XIV since the king enjoyed the process and always attended every one of his births.
Given his fascination, he laid the women on their backs to slow down the process and forced the midwives to be men so that they would empathize less with them, according to an investigation in the American Journal of Public Health.
But what happens when they are lying down during the report?
According to science, it is considered that the fact that the mother is lying down reduces the opening of the pelvis by around 20%. Hence, the baby sees the space she has to go outside diminished. That is, lying down or lying on your back, the so-called obstetric position, during childbirth, prolongs labor, increases pain, and delays contractions, however, the majority of women in most Western countries give birth in this position.
This story was written in Spanish by Perla Vallejo in Ecoosfera.
