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 ...

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 ...

This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated. When the brick coffin of a young woman from ...

Archaeologists in Italy have discovered the remains of a Medieval woman who appeared to give a coffin birth. This results when a pregnant woman dies without giving birth to the child she is carrying.

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Medieval English Birth Scroll. MS.632 (c. 1500), Wellcome Collection. The girdle contains prayers and invocations for safe delivery in childbirth. Biomolecular evidence supports its active use.

Italian archaeologists have uncovered a Medieval grave containing the remains of a woman and a fetus lying between her legs. It’s a grim example of a “coffin birth,” say the researchers, but there’s ...

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 ...