How and where are we born?

Answer 1

From the beginning of time, women had babies where-ever the woman was when contractions started. The prehistoric woman could have been in the middle of gathering fruits, nuts, and plants during her "gathering" of foods, or while lying down in a cave. But since gravity helps when pushing a baby out, squatting down and holding onto a tree was the most convenient way to birth a child through the centuries of early human existence.

Much later in human life, pregnant women had a woman, usually older and more experienced, to "attend to" the pregnant woman. These older, wiser women were called midwives. (Midwives still assist women through labor and delivery.)

With small advances in education, some men became Doctors of Medicine. However, early on, women giving birth was still women's work. Midwifery continued, and doctors were only called when there was no midwife to call upon.

With more organization of Medical Doctors, and with the work of Florence Nightingale (1820-1910, humans began to create centralized locations where the sickest people could receive medical care. These places were called hospitals, started around 1400s in Europe and the USA in 1860s-1880s. The sickest people, those who doctors could not easily cure, went to asylums and sanitariums. But pregnant women weren't really "sick"--- birth is a wellness event. So up until the 1920-1934s, women continued to stay at home to give birth to their babies.

However, though pregnancy, labor, and delivery is a wellness event, the fact was that it is also a dangerous time for women and babies. Through the centuries without technological machinery, sterile procedures, and no antibiotics, tens of thousands (if not several million) women or their babies died during childbirth or the mother developed high fever before 6-weeks after delivery from uterine infection! Children from birth to age 5-6 yrs old were very likely to die from viruses, bacteria, or communicable diseases (typhoid from dirty water), measles, mumps, etc.

Louis Pasteur had identified that germs cause disease, and Robert Koch worked on the microscope, but no one had discovered a way to treat bacterial infections. Then, in 1928, Sir Alexander Fleming of Scotland discovered penicillin fights bacteria! However, the first patient in the United States was not treated with penicillin until 1942. World War II (1939-1945) meant a large population of patients (wounded soldiers) who required penicillin. BUT there were only 400 million units of penicillin available during the first five months of 1943! Not nearly enough to treat the soldiers! By 1945 when WWII ended, though, U.S. companies were making 650 billion units every month! With the war's end, these companies wanted to keep producing the medicine and selling it-- and there were always sick people who would need the drug.

By 1910-1920, more women started to go to the hospital, which increased through the 1940s. After WWII ended, though, doctors highly insisted that women enter the hospital to have their babies. From WWII doctors had also learned much more about putting someone "to sleep" with gas (and waking them up), so they convinced women that they could have a painless delivery. Women would be "knocked out" with gas and when they awoke---there was a baby! And baby or mom were kept in the hospital nearly a month! If either developed an infection, they could receive penicillin.

However, by the 1960s-1970s, many women fought this system of being unconscious while giving birth. They fought for "natural childbirth". And so, women had a "choice". By the 1980s, women had more control over how much medical intervention they wanted. And by the 1980s, many women began to return to home births.

So, today, a baby might be born:

1. at home
2. in a vehicle on the way to a hospital
3. in a hospital

As to how a baby is born, contractions in the uterus help push a newborn through the mother's vagina to the outside. The baby is held and the umbilical cord is cut to separate the baby's lifeline from the mother. And that is the very shortest story of childbirth.

Please see

How do human babies get born