From Traditional to Modern Methods: Birth Process of Women in Ottoman Society

Abstract

Since the beginning of human history, childbirths have occurred. Until the late 17th and early 18th centuries, childbirths in the Ottoman Empire, as in Europe, were attended by midwives trained by the master-apprentice method, who did not have adequate knowledge and experience. Midwives frequently did not pay attention to asepsis and antisepsis during labour and resorted to superstitions in deliveries, leading to maternal and child deaths. In the early 18th century, the invention of forceps in Europe introduced a distinctive perspective to t obstetrics and gynecology. In the 19th century, especially in Germany, France, England, Italy, Russia, and the United States of America, significant developments have been experienced in technical and practical knowledge on pregnancy, childbirth knowledge, maternity, and birth instruments. The Ottoman Empire also took steps both to adapt to the developments in the knowledge of labour and delivery in Europe and to ensure that physicians and traditional midwives were trained in accordance with modern medical methods, Towards the end of the 19th century, started to introduce modern maternity clinics called delivery clinics. Thus, from the first half of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century the birth process of women in the Ottoman Empire began to evolved from traditional practices to modern practices.