20 Terrifying Ways Doctors Once ‘Treated’ Pregnant Women

In 1957, German pharmaceutical company Chemie Grünenthal introduced thalidomide as a sedative and treatment for morning sickness, claiming it had no side effects and citing studies of the drug’s low toxicity in animals. When the drug was later submitted for approval in the United States, FDA reviewer Frances Kelsey resisted its commercial approval because she wasn’t satisfied with the evidence of its safety. Despite her efforts, hundreds of American women still received samples for clinical trials. Over 10,000 infants worldwide were born with severe limb malformations. The drug was thankfully removed from the market in 1961.

Twilight Sleep, a childbirth method developed in Germany beginning in 1902, consisted of morphine to control pain combined with scopolamine to produce amnesia. Women receiving Twilight Sleep often thrashed violently and had to be restrained in padded rooms during labor, while newborns suffered increased rates of breathing problems. Forceful deliveries were also more common. Doctors in Europe and North America used this procedure into the 1940s. The rather glaring problem was that although doctors thought they had eliminated the pain of childbirth, they had only eliminated the memory of it.

One fluid ounce of Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup contained 65 milligrams of morphine mixed with alcohol. This all-purpose remedy, which was spoon-fed to crying, teething infants, could cause respiratory depression (dangerously slowed breathing), addiction, and severe constipation. Introduced in 1849, it was condemned by the American Medical Association as a baby killer in 1911. However, the recipe did not change until the 1930s.

For several decades, obstetricians X-rayed the pelvises of pregnant women to measure their bones before delivery. The practice continued into the late 1960s and 1970s despite British epidemiologist Alice Stewart publishing research in The Lancet in 1956 showing that a single pelvic X-ray was associated with double the risk of childhood cancer. Medical societies picked apart Stewart’s methodology for over a decade.

While Lysol was first manufactured as a household disinfectant in the late 1800s, it was used off-label by some women for vaginal douching in the early 1900s. Before 1953, Lysol contained the toxic ingredient cresol and caused burns and even deaths from injuries such as uterine perforation. In 1911, an investigation recorded 193 poisonings and five deaths. Over the course of several decades, Lysol manufacturer Lehn & Fink produced “feminine hygiene” ads with coded contraceptive messaging to get around the Comstock laws, which restricted the distribution of contraceptive information and products. I use Lysol wipes to clean my kitchen. I never could’ve imagined them being used for feminine hygiene.

From the 1500s through the late 1800s, doctors treated pregnant women for various conditions—including morning sickness, eclampsia, and syphilis—with calomel, a mercury-based medicine. Doctors would administer the calomel until a patient began salivating uncontrollably, believing this symptom meant illness was being purged from the body. However, uncontrolled drooling is actually a symptom of mercury poisoning. In addition to destroying gum tissue, the jawbone, and the kidneys, calomel treatment induced miscarriages.

Dr. John Snow, a pioneering British anesthetist, administered chloroform to Queen Victoria during the birth of her son Prince Leopold in 1853, helping make chloroform fashionable for childbirth across Europe. The trend even earned the name chloroform à la reine, or “chloroform in the manner of the queen.” However, chloroform overdoses were frequent, leading to respiratory arrest, arrhythmias, and difficult labors, often requiring forceps. Without modern vaporizers or precise dosing, women could receive chloroform by having it poured onto a handkerchief held over the face. This method remained standard practice for decades. Queen Victoria may have started a lot of trends in her day, but this is one that definitely should’ve stayed behind closed doors.

Victorian women were expected to hide the fact that they were pregnant and maintain their waists. Manufacturers answered the call with steel-boned “maternity corsets.” Tight-lacing during pregnancy crammed the organs up toward the diaphragm, constricted the liver and stomach, and cut down the circulation of blood to the womb. The results were fainting, severe pains, and premature labor. While some doctors condemned maternity tight-lacing, others patented their own “supportive” corsets. So much for getting a doctor’s note to avoid one.

American physician Silas Weir Mitchell introduced his “rest cure” in the 1870s for women supposedly suffering from nervous exhaustion or “hysteria,” including some who were pregnant or postpartum. His regimen called for four to eight weeks of strict bed rest, without the privilege of sitting up, writing, reading, or even feeding oneself. Instead of healing, it could lead to severe depression and muscle wasting. Doctors continued to prescribe Mitchell’s cure into the 1910s.

From the 1930s through the 1960s, obstetrical textbooks recommended a total pregnancy weight gain limit of 10 to 15 pounds. Women were placed on low-calorie diets and their fluids were limited. Sometimes doctors prescribed amphetamines or diuretics to control pregnancy weight gain. Unfortunately, this dogma failed to prevent pre-eclampsia (a dangerous pregnancy complication involving high blood pressure) and resulted in restricted fetal growth and increased infant mortality. A 1970 National Academy of Sciences report finally reversed this recommendation.

In the 1890s, in Sheffield, England, cases of lead poisoning alerted some working-class women to the fact that ingesting lead could cause an abortion. Some began rolling diachylon, a legally available lead-based plaster normally used on wounds, into pills and swallowing them. Ingestion could result in acute lead poisoning and cause blindness, colic, paralysis, and death. The unrestricted sale of diachylon was eventually banned in 1917.

In 1808, Dr. John Stearns advocated using ergot, a fungus that grows on rye, to speed up slow labors. The problem was that doctors couldn’t reliably control the dose. It could cause relentless and uninterrupted contractions, potentially rupturing the uterus, causing hemorrhage, or suffocating the baby when given before the cervix was fully dilated. By the mid-1800s, more cautious obstetricians had limited its use to controlling bleeding after childbirth instead.

Until Renaissance dissections revealed that the uterus stayed put, doctors had believed since the time of ancient Greek physician Hippocrates that the womb, when not carrying a child, could wander through the body. This condition, known as “hysterical suffocation,” was treated by holding noxious smells, such as burnt hair or sulfur, to the patient’s nose and more pleasant scents to her vagina to coax the uterus back into place. Yes, doctors were essentially trying to lure it home with a nicer smell. The wandering-womb theory lost credibility and was gone by the eighteenth century.

During the 18th and 19th centuries, doctors would try to reposition breech or transverse babies—babies positioned bottom-first or sideways rather than head-first—by applying strong force through the abdominal wall. Kneading the pregnant woman’s stomach without really knowing what they were doing caused a myriad of problems for both mother and child, including placental abruption, uterine rupture, hemorrhage, and fetal death. The same basic idea of turning a baby from outside the abdomen is actually performed today, but in a much safer way and with modern medical monitoring.

Between the 1870s and 1910s, doctors prescribed fatigued, nauseous, or anemic pregnant patients tonics such as Fellows’ Compound Syrup, which were legally sold and accepted by doctors at the time. To stimulate the nervous system, some of these tonics contained alcohol along with substances such as strychnine, arsenic, and iron. Prolonged use could lead to poisoning, seizures, and miscarriages. Eventually, new food and drug regulations helped bring such tonics to an end.

In the 19th century, doctors taught that a mother’s experiences could physically shape her child. They believed a pregnant woman’s fears and unfulfilled desires could imprint on her unborn baby: her longing for fruit might leave a birthmark, and being startled by an animal might cause a deformed limb. Though we consider these ideas superstitions today, versions of this belief were once accepted as medical explanations. Eventually, researchers learned more about how fetal development actually worked through fields such as embryology and cellular pathology.

The application of “high” forceps—using the instruments before the baby had fully descended through the birth canal—was traumatic. It required violent traction and resulted in tears and fistulae of the birth canal, fractured pelvises for the mothers, and fatal cranial injuries for the babies. The Chamberlen family invented forceps in the 17th century and kept their discovery a secret. In the following century, the use of forceps became widespread. Practitioners sometimes used them to speed up delivery. Used correctly, however, “low” forceps, applied after the baby had descended farther, helped save lives in difficult or obstructed labors.

In the old medical system known as humoral medicine, doctors believed that an excess of blood, called “plethora,” developed during pregnancy. Doctors, including prominent American physician Benjamin Rush, treated pregnant women with bloodletting using either a lancet or leeches to alleviate symptoms including morning sickness, swelling, headaches, and eclamptic seizures. Instead, bloodletting could cause anemia and dangerously lower blood pressure. In women with eclampsia, it could worsen cardiovascular shock and contribute to fetal death. Its use dwindled by the mid-1800s.

Prior to the late 1950s, doctors rarely counseled against smoking during pregnancy because the risks to fetal development were not yet well understood. In 1957 and 1958, studies began showing real risks to babies. During this time, cigarette ads targeted at women stressed smoking for appetite control and its supposed nerve-calming effects. And while doctors never officially prescribed smoking to produce smaller babies, many women believed it could help ensure a smaller baby and therefore an easier labor.

In 1847, Hungarian physician Ignaz Semmelweis realized that doctors moving directly from autopsies to maternity wards were carrying whatever caused deadly childbed fever on their hands. At Vienna General Hospital, he instituted a chlorine handwashing procedure that was followed by a drop in maternal deaths from roughly 10–30% to less than 2%. Doctors were working before germ theory had become established, so many blamed the fever on bad air or mental suffering and were offended by the idea that their own hands could be responsible. Semmelweis’ discovery was resisted by his colleagues for decades, and thousands of mothers died while the medical establishment continued arguing over the cause.

This content was created with the help of AI.