Childbearing was once generally looked upon as rendering a woman dangerous and unclean. [1] A child has been in existence about nine months before it experiences birth. [2] Among the unmixed tribes, childbirth was comparatively easy, occupying only two or three hours; it is seldom so easy among the mixed races. [3]
A woman is indeed sorrowful in the hour of her travail, but when she is once delivered of her child, she immediately forgets her anguish in the joy of the knowledge that a man has been born into the world. [4] Childbirth was not a painful or distressing ordeal to Fonta, the first human woman, and her immediate progeny. [5]
There was a Mosaic ordinance which directed that a mother, after the passing of a certain period of time, should present herself at the temple for purification. [6]