ABSTRACT
The Church's teaching that the procreation of children was one of the major purposes of marriage harmonised to a varying extent with the economic strategies and personal needs of individual couples. Normal childbirth may have been very little more dangerous in their period than it is today, but even small complications and abnormalities introduced very much greater risks. Happy messages took the news of safe and welcome births along the family network. In their period infant care was governed by customs and lore passed down from one generation of women to the next. The inherited regime was designed to maintain a womb-like environment for the newly born baby. Breastfeeding, the other major element of the infant's regime, lasted a good deal longer. Writers on familial duties before and during this period generally regarded the tie between parents and their young children as one of the closest of human bonds. Parental affection was believed to be natural, instinctive and deep-rooted.
