In ancient times, every village had midwives, because there was no hospital or medical equipment at that time, and only artificial births could be made, and pregnant women gave birth at home.
Midwife, also known as "stable mother", she is an independent profession, formed in the Eastern Han Dynasty, to the Tang and Song Dynasties, this profession is very popular, until the development of modern medical industry, it was banned by hospitals.
In many palace fight dramas or costume dramas, you may find a scene that appears very frequently, that is, when pregnant women want to give birth, the midwife will shout: boil hot water, boil hot water. So the question is, what is the role of boiling hot water for the production of pregnant women?
When the due date comes, the family usually calls in advance to the midwife, and from that moment on, the woman begins the difficult journey of fighting the god of death, which is not sensational, but a fact.
Because the medical conditions in ancient times were very poor, pregnant women could only have a vaginal birth, and caesarean section was impossible, so ancient women lost too much blood due to giving birth to children, or cases of stillbirth were not uncommon, and it was no exaggeration to compare this high-risk thing to fighting with death.
When pregnant women are about to be potted, the mother's family also begins to divide into two ways, all the way to prepare supplies for delivery, such as utensils such as buckets and pots, ginseng medicine, brown sugar, ginger, grass paper, etc. The other way is to do a good job of logistics, in the north to burn the kang, to maintain the temperature inside the house.
The most important of these is to boil hot water, because pregnant women in ancient times needed a lot of hot water when giving birth, and a pot in their own home may not be enough, and they need to go to the neighbor's house to burn another pot.
Why use so much hot water? The abundance of hot water is the key to the smooth birth of babies in ancient times, and hot water mainly has the following four functions.
1. Disinfection
As we all know, the daily water of ancient people mainly has two sources, one is to take water in the river, the other is to carry water in the well, untreated water will have a lot of bacteria, pregnant women are extremely weak, once infected, there will be a lot of diseases in the future.
Therefore, boiling water can play a role in sterilization and disinfection, in ancient times, there was no purifier, there was no drug disinfection, boiling water is often the simplest and most convenient disinfection method.
After the pregnant woman's amniotic fluid is broken, the midwife should use a wet towel to scrub it, the hot water at this time is relatively hygienic, not easy to cause infection, in addition, the use of cold water may cause harm to the pregnant woman's body, so hot water is a must-have choice, and the whole process needs to be constantly wiped, so it is critical to ensure that the hot water supply is sufficient.
2. Cold resistance
During the delivery, pregnant women face a situation of heavy bleeding, the body is also very weak, and the body temperature gradually decreases. In the case of cold, it is very unfavorable to the expansion of the uterine orifice of pregnant women, and the consequence is to increase the time of childbirth, and may even cause dystocia.
In such a critical time, there will usually be hot kang in the north, which plays a good role in keeping warm. But for the south, ordinary people can not afford to buy charcoal fire for heating, can only use hot water, you can use water bags and other appliances, fill it with hot water, apply to the body of pregnant women, play a good role in keeping warm.
Of course, the hot water in the hot water bottle should be changed every once in a while, and if it is cold, it will not work, which requires sufficient hot water to maintain the temperature of the pregnant woman's body.
3. Prevent uterine contractions
In ancient times, normal childbirth was the only way for pregnant women to give birth to children, in addition, there was no other way, the most feared thing about having a child was difficult childbirth, once there was a difficult birth, whether it was a common people or a royal family, it was difficult to deal with.
When the Kangxi Emperor's Empress Xiaochengren gave birth to a second prince, she accidentally died in childbirth, and the taiyi was helpless. There was also the Kangxi Emperor's Princess Wenke, who died of physical weakness and excessive bleeding after giving birth to twins.
There are many reasons for dystocia, which can be roughly divided into three types, one is that the fetus is too large or the position is abnormal, the second is that the mother cannot exert strength, resulting in the child not being born, and the third is that the uterine opening is too small, resulting in the difficulty of giving birth to the fetus.
In the absence of caesarean section, whether the fetus is too large or the uterine orifice is too small, it is easy to cause dystocia, and the only way to assist in childbirth is by enlarging the uterine orifice.
Experienced midwives will use hot water to repeatedly wipe the uterine opening to relieve the contraction of the uterine opening, and at the same time use a hot towel to wipe the sweat of the pregnant woman, so that she can stay awake and encourage her to continue to work hard.
Compared with modern people, most of the ancient people were malnourished, and their physical fitness naturally could not keep up, so the time dragged on too long and they were more likely to be dangerous.
If you encounter a real difficult birth situation, you may use scissors to cut the uterine opening, which is already the most difficult operation, only experienced midwives or doctors, in the case of compulsion, will have such an operation. At this time, hot water is needed to wipe the wound to ensure that the fetal part can be seen. So hot water is too important.
4. Wash the baby
When the mother gives birth, there will be a situation of urinary and urinary incontinence, the newborn baby is covered with blood stains, fetal fat and other foreign bodies, need to be cleaned up in time, such as using cold water, it is likely to wipe clean, more likely to frostbite the baby, so it is necessary to prepare hot water in advance, wet with a towel, remove the stains on the baby's body, so that the baby is clean, healthy and healthy to come to this world.
Therefore, in ancient times, when pregnant women gave birth, hot water was crucial for pregnant women, and it can only be said that the more the better. Therefore, the term "boiling hot water" is widely used in film and television dramas.
In the case of backward conditions in ancient times, the ancients also tried their best, although there is no scientific method, but the accumulation of experience for many years may be more effective than science. Deserves our thumbs up.