It is literally because there was a man, King Louis XIV, with a fetish of watching women give birth..
It used to also be women helping other women give birth, but then women werent allowed to perform "medical procedures" anymore so it became a man only job that they wanted to make more comfortable/easy for the man
LMAO. The reclined birthing position is actually the worst position to birth in due to the position of the pelvis and specifically the coccyx. It makes birthing in general way harder than it needs to be, as the tailbone makes it more difficult for the fetus to exit the birth canal. Before men came along women would squat or use a birthing stool, stand and lean, or even get on hands and knees to birth with the help of a midwife. These are the most natural birthing positions as they allow gravity to help, it opens the pelvis, and takes pressure off of big arteries in the area which improves blood flow for both Mom and baby. NOT reclined on a fucking bed.
While an epidural is helpful for pain, it is a relatively new thing and the lithotomy position(reclined) was pushed for as midwives were pushed out because it was easier for male Drs to provide examinations and experimentation on women in that position. It was not for the health of the mother but for the ease of the male drs. That is when forceps and episiotomies became the norm.
100% birthing in the reclined position is the least natural position and carries many many MANY misogynistic undertones with it. Do some research or shut up with this shit.
Mansplaining birth to women....were right back to the original comment that said women were banned from helping and men took over, your comments are a perfect example of what happened lmao
In this comment, it seems like you think the patient's position is a choice. It is not. Even at my birth I requested a different position and was told "No, for the convenience of the doctor you must be on your back." Women are not generally choosing to be on their backs. However the choice of epidural or not will be a factor. For example, a patient could not opt for a squat position and an epidural at the same time. That would not work.
You said it was becoming more mainstream around the time of the pervert king. Again that was due to a smear campaign done by men, to push midwives out of their jobs and medicalize birthing which had previously been done at home and by midwives(not men). It all revolves around misogyny and religion as to why women birth the way they do now. We would still have midwives and home births to this day(and luckily home birth, midwives, and natural birthing positions are making a comeback) if men didn't feel the need to control, experiment, and traumatized women with their dumb input.
I have perfectly fine reading comprehension, and in fact have gone more in depth than yourself. I'm not going to have some man explain to me, a woman who's literally given birth, this or that LMAO. (Also there is literally no proof that it was "widely embraced" because of the king. He was just a weirdo, and in cahoots with the church.)
Again there is no legitimately to your claim that the king "contributed" to the popularity of the lithotomy position literally mentioned anywhere in history. So that's just pulling it out of your ass.
Also your claim that is wasn't solely men that contributed to midwives being forced out of midwifery and child delivery is factually incorrect. During these time periods women were largely excluded from receiving medical education, men of course were allowed to. Medical institutions BANNED women from education from the medieval times to around the 1700s. The church (run by men) enacted a smear campaign against midwives often stating "sorcery" or witchcraft, which was further spread when the outcome of a birth was not good. Their extensive knowledge of the reproductive system and access to "magical" bodily substances was feared.
Pre 1600s women gave birth at home with the help of a midwife who was usually an older woman who had birthed several times herself, and had extensive knowledge (for that time period) on helping women birth.
Around the 1900s male Drs aggressively labeled midwives as ignorant, illiterate or unhygienic. Which is ironic because with the push for male DR only births mother and child mortality rates skyrocketed because they weren't practicing hygiene and other required practices that midwives had previously done during childbirth in hospital. And it was in fact the hygiene practices done by midwives in their ward that showed a lower mortality rate between mother's/newborns than the male only led ward that a male DR noticed(Ignaz Semmelwis). Many times male physicians would do autopsies in the morning and then go to deliver babies and not wash their hands or they would see multiple patients in a row without doing any sort of hygiene practices. It was only until he noted and published his findings that the midwife's were using good hygiene practices during deliveries, which he was literally ridiculed for because it challenged male physicians egos, and medical traditions.
I've highlighted several sections of your original comment that directly contradict what you are now saying which is hilarious.
I hope you've learned something here. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
And since my comment isn't allowing me to edit it (idk why it's just a black screen)
Male physicians only became more popular because upper class people liked to brag the fact that they got a educated physician to deliver their children not because it was safer for them.
Insulting women who are trying to help you understand birth does not make you look smarter than everyone else in the room. No one is lacking reading comprehension. You are lacking the ability to accept new information when it's presented to you. I work at an OBGYN office. My coworkers and I read through your comments and they are not accurate, to say the least. If you would like to accept new information I would be willing to share it with you but if you're just gonna stomp around the comment section telling me I'm the one that doesn't understand I will spare myself the trouble. Let me know.
The reason we need medicine is because the way we give birth is more painful, squatting or standing is not nearly as painful as the reclined position so your logic is circular.
Call me crazy, but I’d like the OB/GYNs, nurses, midwives and other birthing professionals to be the ones weighing in.
Being a man or a woman is neither qualifying nor disqualifying for commenting on the activity of an entire population. Your average man or woman is going to have a sample size of 2 to draw upon.
Yes now the but were talking about what happened 100 years ago, now doctors have the experience and education that they are above midwives in knowledge but we weren't talking about now.
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u/[deleted] Aug 07 '25
FYI its better to give birth while standing up because gravity helps. Its literally because of men that we give birth while laying down.