Pregnancy was a baffling and awesome power to our ancestors. Even a small woman had a large power to create new life. Myths addressed questions about pregnancy and answers that today are considered laughable provided comfort for our ancestors. Conception and birth seemed to be rewards from cantankerous gods and goddesses that needed to be propitiated in order to conceive.

Egyptian Mythology

The power to create new life was held so much in awe in ancient Egypt that it was given to the mightiest of the gods, the god of the sun. This name varied from Ra to Aten. Many stories of the sun god still survive, but many stated that he was the first god and was not born of a woman, but was self-generating and could have offspring without a female.

One of the sun’s offspring was Taweret, the goddess of childbirth. She had a crocodile’s head and a hippopotamus’ body, but she walked on two feet. Since she was in charge of childbirth, Egyptian women questions and answers would be considered due to her capriciousness. She was also connected to the annual flooding of the Nile River. Without the flooding, the fields could not produce crops.

Judeo-Christian Mythology

For thousands of years, the Garden of Eden myth answered some basic questions about childbirth. God made the first man and then the first woman from the rib of the first man. God said to the pair that they could do anything they wanted except eat fruit from a particular tree.

Because Eve was the first to eat the forbidden fruit, she was condemned to endure terrible pain during childbirth. Giving painkillers to women in childbirth has only happened in the last couple of hundred years because women were expected to suffer because God willed it.

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