ABSTRACT
From the twelfth century, with the burgeoning of the worship of the Holy Mother and Child, certain images became universally familiar: Mary heavy with child, and St Elizabeth, pregnant with John the Baptist; Mary immediately after the birth of Christ, Mary and Elizabeth holding their infants and smiling at them. If the delivery was spontaneous without special difficulties, so much the better, but, in the event of any complication, the midwife could do very little, even if she was a townswoman who had been well trained. Manual intervention might, at times, help to shift the child into a normal position for delivery, but, to the same degree, there was a chance that it might be twisted further out of position, creating the risk of detachment of the placenta from the wall of the uterus or pressure on the umbilical cord, which could prove fatal.
