How did women avoid pregnancy before the pill?

[ericcartman]

How come most families weren't the size of football teams back then? I mean bar any fertility issues or couples stopping having sex what else was there? I know condoms and abortions have been around for ages in one form or another but I doubt either was that common till the 20th century, especially when talking about married couples.

Zzzz yes it is a huge gain. That example is keeping the population static.

Often they didn't - my great-grandfather was one of 14 children.

But also, in "the old days" abortion was pretty common. As long as you hadn't "quickened" (felt the baby move) then it was considered to be bringing on a period, and pretty normal.

Eric yes, because nutrition and basic healthcare and maternity care are gradually improving, but there is little economic stability, so large families are seen as a way of ensuring survival- more workers to care for older/ unwell family members. Also the culture of large families being seen as proving a mans virility and a woman’s status. Contraception is seen as undesirable is many areas. Also many church led (particularly American) aid programs prohibit the recipient healthcare providers from prescribing or counselling contraception.

If I look into my family history they either had large families or a lot of young infant deaths. In one case an illegitimate child and mum never married (because "spoilt goods") and ond mum who died when she was 32.

In my exDH's family history there was one family with 11 kids and only one kid made it to adulthood.

If you look at Africa it does seem like food is all you need to have huge population growth. Most of the continent has very little access to modern healthcare, the huge population growth is due to the great technological progress in agriculture in the 20th century. So basically access to more food trumps everything else : infant mortality, disease...

Germany's population was almost 70 mill over 100 years ago, it's just over 80 mill now and that includes immigration. That was 50 years before the pill. If Germany was in Africa it would have been at 400-500 mill by now. I don't know, something doesn't add up.

Nigeria is expected to go from 200 to 400 million by 2050. Most nigerians live on less than 1$/day. These people are living at the absolute edge, far worse conditions than people in the West had 100 years ago. Yet the population is booming. It doesn't make sense.

Was German mortality in WW1 and WW2 a factor in slower population growth?

My cemetary has a huge, tombstone / monument thing (( dating from the 1800s ))engraved with the names of around 12 children who died one after the other. The saddest one being a baby who must have been born a few years later then didnt wake from sleep (( cot death )) at a few months old.

Im guessing the others died from some contagious illness as theyre all literally weeks apart........pretty obvious they were a rich family but even with doctors it was pot luck whether kids lived or died back then 🤷‍♀️

Was German mortality in WW1 and WW2 a factor in slower population growth?

Ofc that would have an effect on it but let's take the swiss as an example since they haven't been in a way for 500 years.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Switzerland#Population

The swiss population went from 4 to 8 million in 100 years plus ''foreigners with permanent residency (which does not include temporary foreign workers) make up about 23% of the population''. I barely went up from 4 to 5 mill in the 50 years before the pill was released. And they had better food and healthcare than the 1$/day nigerian of 2018. Not to mention all the issues that come with living in the hot areas of the planet. Doesn't add up.

& child deaths from diseases like diphtheria,mumps measles, whooping cough , polio pneumonia etc etc babies & mothers not surviving birth, birth damage affecting mother fertility, & syphilis etc affecting fertility ie be glad you live now & that's why we should be grateful for antibiotics & vaccination & improved childbirth care

Husband and I are in our 50's.
I come from a family of 9 dh family of 10.
All our friends are from similar sized families.
We are working class.
We are Catholic and it was the Billings method which was taught to young women.
Not men, they didn't need to worry.

Sponges soaked in vinegar
Not fool proof obvs!
But think even doctors were suggesting that in the Victorian age

Influence of Marie Stopes? I don't know if her working practices spread to Europe or not?

Really interesting thread.

FWIW there are medieval recipes for bringing on a period (ie., early abortion) and also more explicit discussions of terminating pregnancy. It's not clear how well they worked, but my understanding is that right up until surgical abortions were properly developed (and then, things like morning-after pills), there really weren't methods that were very likely to work, that didn't also hugely risk the woman's life.

I don't see why it's odd people might have abstained from that kind of sex. There are loads of dire warnings of the horrors of non-penetrative sex in religious texts, which does kind of suggest people were very keen on those things (why bother warning about something if no one is doing it?!).

A lot of people hear talking about large families are only going back to, 1900-1800 at the earliest. The industrial revolution actually played a big part in this. I remember that before this time natural family sizes where smaller, due to lower nutrition and longer breastfeeding. Women at this point mainly worked from home in cottage industry.

When they moved into cities and had to work in factory babies where either wetnursed is weaned early. So mum's could work, overcrowded housing also incensed the spread of infectious diseases.

The results being larger family size and am increase in infant mortality. (Not that it wasn't great before) Just that poor housing and cramped conditions mean it spread more easily.

You're comparing apples and oranges with the Germany/Africa thing.

Most German women have access to birth control. Most African woman don't. Marital rape us illegal in Germany but not in most of Africa iirc. I could go on...

Up the bum

I remember my DM telling me about her DM who had 9 DCs (Nan was Catholic). She went to the doctor aged 39 with some symptoms and was told it was the menopause. DM remembers her crying with relief and saying "thank the Lord no more children".

*You're comparing apples and oranges with the Germany/Africa thing.

Most German women have access to birth control. Most African woman don't. Marital rape us illegal in Germany but not in most of Africa iirc. I could go on...*

Bullshit. Germany outlawed spousal rape in 1997. And I was specifically comparing pre-bc pill periods. Plus I mentioned Switzerland which was not affected by war. The point is Africa's population exploded once they had enough food while Europe's stayed pretty much the same, all of this pre- bc bill. On top of this, Europe had better nutrition, healthcare and everything else 100 years ago than the 1$/day african of 2018. Again, doesn't add up.

I feel like you’re alluding to something OP. Could you just spit it out?

That's another thing... why did catholics have 18 kids when everyone else had just a few? We're talking about people in the same country, same health care, same nutrition, same diseases, same everything...

Catholic Church teaches children are god’s blessing, to be welcomed. Wives to be available to their husbands, no contraception allowed.

GM had a five a side with 2 reserves but 2 died in infancy.

That and breastfeeding kept families spaces.