Babies Will Be Born: A Comparative Study between Childbirth in Greece and Rome

Samantha M. Shepherd, The College of Wooster

Abstract

The thesis of this independent study is that by comparing Greek childbirth in the fourth century BCE to the Roman childbirth in the first century CE the differences are nearly non-existent and they are nearly the same in regards to the people, beliefs, and tools that surround them. The method used for this I.S. was to seek primary sources and to see how they related to one another and how they were influenced by each other as well as looking into what secondary sources had to say. The biggest sources to this study is Helen King, Hippocrates, and Soranos. A few minor ones include Guido Majno and Galen. My conclusion drew that not only were these two time periods cut from the same fabric but the tools they laid out continue to be used in the twenty-first century childbirth.