Medieval Babies?

[shanmonster]

I figure there are a few historians, SCA folk, and childcare experts here, so I'd post this question in case anyone knows an answer.

What sorts of things were used to take care of babies in medieval times? I'm talking about the equivalent of soothers, baby bottles, onesies, strollers, diaper pins, etc. I'm imagining a lot more swaddling, and carrying babies in slings and such rather than pushing 'em around in baby buggies, especially for peasant families. I figure the rich families could afford fancier equipment.

Can you point me toward any good resources? I've looked around a bit online, but there is a LOT of unrelated chaff to wade through.

Edit: I'm not looking at just medieval Europe, practices/implements in other cultures, too. I'll consider everything from Pygmy to Romanian to Innu.

Comments

[valkryor.livejournal.com]

I found quite a few articles that might be of use:

http://historymedren.about.com/od/medievalchildren/a/child_entry.htm
http://historymedren.about.com/od/medievalchildren/a/child_survival.htm
http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/history/middleages/pdailylife.html
http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewArticle.asp?id=5658 (More about a woman's life in the Middle Ages than childcare specifically.)
http://www.the-orb.net/bibliographies/children.html (A list of article abstracts detailing a child's life in Middle Ages.)

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I'll check them out.

[zydee.livejournal.com]

If you can get your hands on At Home in Renaissance Italy, it's got all sorts of info about childrearing practices in Italy during that period. What I thought was awesome was that there are extant cradles from the period that show that people rocked babies back to front, not side to side--it wasn't till much later that parents caught on to the side-to-side style we use even today. Also, they totally put kids into walkers (those circular things with wheels for older babies/younger toddlers). And they wore helmets of padded cloth in case they fell down while toddling around! For a neat touch, check out portraits of young children during the Renaissance--see how they all seem to wear coral necklaces? Coral was regarded as protective against sickness so you even see it on that portrait of Henry VIII as a toddler. There are a lot of neat things like that.

Iris Origo's Merchant of Prato is from an earlier period, but it's got a lot about parenting as well. It's a long read and not entirely about childrearing, but because it primarily discusses letters between a well-off man and his wife, it deals a lot with parenting concerns--finding wetnurses, education, teaching manners, etc. Similar works that are actually primary sources (or as close as folks can get without learning medieval Italian!) are Ross' Lives of the Early Medici and Gregory's Selected Letters of Alessandra Strozzi. These won't have concentrated sections, but I think combined with the first book would give you a really good understanding of the practices of the period.

Away from Italy, we have Growing Up in Medieval London and Orme's Medieval Children, both about general European history. The latter is, like At Home, lavishly illustrated in color.

If that's not quite what you were looking for, could you elaborate a bit about what you're researching in particular?

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

Very interesting!

Right now, I'm looking in particular for information on newborns and very small babies, and also information dealing with solo unassisted births. The latter isn't necessarily so much time period-sensitive, of course.

In addition, I'm interested in childbirth complications.

This is all for a story I've been working on. I don't necessarily need to get technical, but I need my descriptions to be sound.

[zydee.livejournal.com]

Ah, ok, then the At Home will probably be your best bet of the resources I know about. Orme has some stuff about it too, especially about pregnancy and the resources available to pregnant women. Gies & Gies wrote some family books about the Middle Ages that might be of great value as well. Actually most of their stuff is absolute gold.

By the 1200s, England had already established a hospital to help pregnant poor women, and Italy had some too by at least the early 1400s. From what I've seen so far, it looks like it was very unusual for a woman to give birth entirely by herself, but you may find differently as you delve deeper, and it seems logical that even if there were resources available, there would always be times when someone might be on her own on such a perilous occasion.

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

Yeah, my character is in a situation where she would not be around anyone during the birth, so it will be interesting.

Merci!

[zoe-serious.livejournal.com]

You may want to check out some anthropological accounts in Africa and SE Asia for stories of natural unassisted births. I remember reading a book called Nisa many years ago and she tells of how she just had her babies and kept working http://www.amazon.com/Nisa-Life-Words-Kung-Woman/dp/0674004329/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1294706231&sr=8-1

I am not sure it will have much valuable info but at least it gives you a direction to move towards in terms of research.

Lastly one of my religious studies professors did a book on home birthing in N.America and there were a lot of references in her book to other cultural practices, her book is http://www.amazon.com/Blessed-Events-Religion-Birth-America/dp/0691087989/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1294706332&sr=1-1 so you may want to find this book and look at her references.

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

Merci!