Birth

FAMOUS HISTORICAL BIRTHS

Aristotle believed that the womb is divided into two halves, one for boy babies, the other for girls. 

He said that a woman wishing to conceive a son should lie on her right side, or on her left for a girl.

The Aztecs regarded childbirth as a form of battle with the gods to win her child's life—Mothers who succeeded were celebrated, while women who died in childbirth were thought to become vampiric monsters called Cihuateteo, which stole other women's children.

When Louis II of Hungary was born prematurely on July 1, 1506, doctors kept him alive by slaying animals and wrapping him in their warm carcasses as a primitive incubator. 

In Sigershaufen, Switzerland, during the early 16^th century a pregnant woman, Frau Nufer, was having considerable trouble delivering her child, possibly because of the baby's position. In great distress her husband Jacob watched his wife's labor going from bad to worse, without her being able to give birth. A sow-gelder, by trade on the spur of the moment he took a razor and cut open the uterus to release the baby. Legend has it that Julius Caesar was delivered this way and it is thus being referred to as a Caesarean operation.

Virginia Dare is considered to be the first English child born in the Americas, specifically on Roanoke Island in what is now North Carolina, on August 18, 1587. She was the granddaughter of Governor John White, who was the leader of the Roanoke colony. The colony ultimately failed, and the fate of Virginia Dare and the other colonists remains a mystery to this day.

Nicholas Guy (fl. 1612 – 1631) was one of the first settlers at the London and Bristol Company's Cuper's Cove, colony in Newfoundland. He was the father of the first English child born in Canada. 

There is some debate among medical historians about who performed the first successful Cesarean section in Britain. While farmer's wife, Alice O'Neal,  is often cited as the patient in the first successful Cesarean in Britain, there are conflicting accounts of the circumstances surrounding the operation and its outcome.

Some sources suggest that the first successful Cesarean in Britain was actually performed by surgeon James Barlow in Manchester in 1736, two years before Alice O'Neal's surgery. Barlow's patient, identified only as "Mrs. Potts," survived the procedure and gave birth to a healthy child.

Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin were both born on February 12, 1809. Lincoln was born in Hodgenville, Kentucky, in the United States, while Darwin was born in Shrewsbury, England. Despite being born on the same day, the two men led very different lives and made very different contributions to history.

Dr Alexander Lion, from Nice, France, who devised the first incubator for premature babies in 1891, helped 137 babies to survive in the equipment’s first three years. To encourage interest in the technology, he also began displaying newborns in their incubators to the paying public.

Margaret Evans was a 23-year-old woman from Miami, Florida, who was pregnant with her first child. On October 26, 1929, she was flying from Miami to New York City on a Pan Am flight when she went into labor. The flight was only halfway there, and there was no doctor on board. However, the flight crew was able to deliver the baby safely. The baby girl was named Airlene, in honor of the fact that she was born on an airplane.

The Dionne quintuplets, named Yvonne, Annette, Cecile, Emilie, and Marie, were born on May 28, 1934, in a farmhouse near the village of Corbeil, near Callander, Ontario, Canada, to Oliva and Elzire Dionne. They were the first known quintuplets to survive infancy, and their birth and subsequent upbringing became the subject of intense media attention and public fascination. The Ontario government took custody of the girls and placed them in a specially-built facility called Quintland, where they were cared for by nurses and doctors and became a popular tourist attraction.

Peruvian Lina Medina became on May 14, 1939 the youngest confirmed mother in medical history at the age of at the age of five years, seven months and 17 days. Her parents, who assumed their daughter had a tumor, took her to a hospital where she was then found to be seven months pregnant. 

Medina's son weighed 6.0 lb at birth and was named Gerardo after her doctor. Gerardo was raised believing that Medina was his sister, but found out at the age of 10 that she was his mother. The biological father who impregnated Lina was never identified.

Politician and television personality Jerry Springer was born on February 13, 1944, in Highgate Underground station in London, England. His parents, Richard and Margot Springer, were German-Jewish refugees who had fled Nazi Germany in 1939. They were living in London during World War II, and Highgate Underground station was being used as a bomb shelter. Margot Springer went into labor during a bombing raid, and Jerry was born in the station..

Dr. John Buster and his team at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance, California, performed the first successful embryo transfer from one woman to another in 1984. The baby girl, who was born on February 3, 1984, was the first baby to be born as a result of this procedure.

Inés Ramírez Pérez, a pregnant Mexican woman from the state of Oaxaca, was experiencing delivery complications. At midnight on March 5, 2000, she drank three glasses of hard liquor and then gave herself a Caesarean section with a kitchen knife. The mother and child both lived. She had no medical training.

Omkari Panwar, a 70-year-old grandmother from India gave birth to twins on June 27, 2008, setting the then-world record for the oldest mother. Omkari delivered a boy and a girl after she underwent IVF treatment, which cost 350,000 rupees (£4,375 or $9,000) - a small fortune in India. To pay for it Charan mortgaged his land, sold his buffalo, spent his life savings and took out a loan.

73-year-old Erramatti Mangayamma became the world's oldest mother when she successfully delivered two healthy babies on September 5, 2019  in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. After 57 years in a childless marriage, Erramatti, and her husband, Raka Rao, conceived after successfully undergoing IVF treatment from Ahalya Hospital. 

A baby girl from Lewisville, Texas named Lynlee was "born" twice in 2016 after she was taken out of her mother's womb for 20 minutes for life-saving surgery. Partner surgeons Dr Darrell Cass and Dr. Oluyinka Olutoye removed her from the womb to cut out a tumor on her spine, placed her back and several weeks later Lynlee was born a second time, healthy and on time.

In August 2019, Czech doctors successfully delivered a baby girl from a brain-dead mother who had suffered a severe stroke. The mother had been kept on life support for 117 days to allow the baby to continue developing in the womb. The baby was delivered by cesarean section at 34 weeks gestation, and despite some initial complications, she was reported to be in stable condition. After the successful delivery, the mother's life support was disconnected, and she was allowed to pass away.

BIRTH RECORDS

The record for giving birth to the most surviving children from a single birth is nine. Halima Cisse, a woman from Mali, gave birth to nonuplets on May 4, 2021, at Ain Borja Clinic in Casablanca, Morocco. The five baby girls and four baby boys were born prematurely, at 30 weeks gestation, and weighed between 500 grams and 1 kilogram. They were all delivered via caesarean section. The nonuplets are the first known case of nine surviving children from a single birth.

The shortest interval between two children who weren't twins is 208 days. The record is co-held by Sadie Budden, a 31-year-old pre-school teacher from Andover, England who gave birth to her son Ronnie in August 2011, and her daughter Sienna in February, 2012. Sienna was born prematurely at just 26 weeks gestation.

Sadie Budden shares the record with New Zealander Jayne Bleackley who gave birth to Joseph Robert on September 3, 1999, and Annie Jessica Joyce on March 30, 2000 - again 208 days apart.

The shortest woman to give birth is American Stacey Herald, who is 28.5in tall (2ft 4in). She gave birth to three children, Kateri, Malachi and Makya. At birth, Makya was 18in long, more than half her mother’s body length, and weighed 4lb 7oz. Herald was born with a condition called osteogenesis imperfecta, which causes brittle bones and underdeveloped lungs. She was told that she would never be able to have children, but she defied the odds.

FUN BIRTH FACTS

255 people are born every minute, according to UNICEF.

Worldwide, the average woman gives birth to an estimated 6.89 children.

Niger has the highest fertility rate in the world, with an average of 6.9 children born per woman. This is followed by Mali, Somalia, Chad, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, all with fertility rates of over 6 children per woman. As of 2023, South Korea has the lowest fertility rate, with an average of 0.78 children born per woman.

The world's population was fewer than 1 billion in 1800, 3 billion in 1960 and 6 billion as recently as 1999. It is now over 8 billion.

When your mother was born, she was already carrying the egg that would become you.

Our eyes are always the same size from birth but our nose and ears never stop growing.

You once held a world record when you were born for being the "Youngest Person on The Planet."

Only 4% of babies are born on their actual due date.

Aphids can give birth 10 days after being born themselves.

The chances for a mother giving birth to quadruplets (four Childs) are almost 1 in 600000.

Normally there are born 94 females to 100 males. But among quadruplets there are 156 females for every 100 males.

More babies are born in August than in any other month.

Human babies are born two months prematurely for our size and lifespan, to accommodate for the fact that we have large brains during birth.

Traditional Egyptian Sebous—post-birth naming ceremonies—may include scaring the baby with loud noises to teach courage.

In 1965, a patent was filed for a "birthing apparatus" which would spin pregnant women around at as much as 7G until their baby was flung out from the centrifugal force.

In China, the day a child is born it is considered one year old.

While just 1.26% of babies born in the United States in 2021 entered the world at home, about 95% were born at home in 1900.

Approximately one out of every 55 women from Canada give birth in their car on the way to the hospital or clinic.

22% of American women aged 20 gave birth while in their teens. In Switzerland and Japan, only 2% did so.

A 41-gun salute is the traditional salute to a royal birth in Great Britain.

Pixar lists all children born during the production of their movies in the credits as "Production Babies".

Mumbai businessman  Raphael Samuel attempted to sue his parents in 2019 for giving birth to him without his consent. He claimed it is wrong to bring a child into the world, because they have to put up with lifelong suffering.

Antinatalism is a philosophical position that assigns a negative value to birth. The arguments range from the trauma and suffering that comes with existing to the idea that it's morally wrong to bring a being into existence without their consent.

Sources Greatfacts.com, International Business Times, Daily Express