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.

A quick Google would tell you the Catholic ban on ‘artificial’ contraception, OP. Why do I feel like you’re attempting to make some kind of point?

Often they didn't. The pill was revolutionary for women.

You're talking of my mum's generation, here. She is 70.i saw the op and thought more of her parents.

Forgot in my reply above the bit about dying at 50. My paternal grandma, born 100 years ago, bore 7 children and lived to 70, dying quickly, without warning, but my mum's mum died not much older than me, when my mum was about 12.

I have no agenda. If you asked me, I could tell you how it was in my part of the woods (communist Romania). Women around my mom's age had countless illegal abortions. As for previous generations, I have no idea. My grandparents had 5 kids between them, I have no idea how they kept it so low since I doubt abortions were a thing at that time and there was no contraception around.

Catholics only allowed the rhythm method. That I do know. The Catholic church was Marie Stopes' fiercest critic. (I am cribbing that directly from the BBC.) So maybe Spain and Italy would have had greater population growth.

Why on earth do you doubt abortions were “a thing”? they didn’t just appear 50 years ago!

Coitus interruptus

Education is the biggest cause in reduction of birth numbers per female after the introduction of contraception.

The higher the female population is educated (school, college, uni) the less babies each woman will have. This is because women who are educated are economically active (earning money) babies directly impact their earning capacity.

But back in the day families were huge and lots of children died young and lots were orphaned hence massive ophanages like Banardos and Quarriers.

Contraception was around. Marie Stopes prescribed a sponge soaked in olive oil, a method dating back to the Greeks. And abortion has always been 'a thing'. Various different herbs for instance.

Well for arguments sake if we say a woman is fertile 16-40 and gets pregnant every two years (9 mths pregnant and a year breastfeeding and a few months trying) until 40 that gives her 14 children.

That’s with optimal fertility. So with normal fertility, bad nutrition and natural abscenance and child death I can see how that number could go down to 5/6 kids per family.

Some of my relatives had 10+ children up until less than 100 years ago. There are countless lost babies. The 1911 census recorded children born alive, children living and children died. After 1837 you were supposed to register live births but my history tells me rural families didn't if the child died neo natally. Before 1837 it was baptisms only as a vague record.
Women have tried all sorts to control their fertility throughout history. There are no records. Maternal age, nutrition and health play a part. Herbal medicines, fudged records etc. Nobody knows.

My mum had 6 kids.
My mum was 1 of 6
My grandmother was 1 of 13

There's your answer

The ancient Greeks wrote about abortions, many medics of the day believing that up to a certain gestation a foetus was a sort of vegetable.

Violetroselily Fri 14-Sep-18 21:44:09
Anal
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Ouch!!!!! I'm buggered if I'd agree to that. Yeuch.

Seriously, where there was a will, there was a way. If someone was quite determined not to have any or any more children, they usually managed - without resorting to using the (eek!) back entrance.

The problem was that it wasn't talked about much so a lot of women were ignorant about contraception.

I wonder how much of this is a matter of perspective. For example, me and my boyfriend were pretty shocking with using condoms and also the withdrawal method prior to me getting the coil (I know, I'm not proud). But how much was that down to the fact we knew the morning after pill, while not a preferable option, was still an option? If we had been born 100 years earlier, would we have been better with the withdrawal method because there was no fall back? Probably.

If withdrawal is your only option, going way, way back, then presumably you just do it because it was the done thing.

We are very fortunate to have the contraceptive options we have now. And, seemingly, without them the population would be increasing drastically. But I do wonder if they just weren't an option, would we be more sensible because the risk would be too great?

Also, not wanting to turn this in to a feminist argument. But historically, any children born were the woman's problem. So perhaps the man wouldn't be as inclined to withdraw. Whereas now, it should be a fairly equal split between a mother and father when it comes to having and raising a child. So, if there was no contraception available today, I suspect a man would be more inclined to withdraw as they would be left with the consequence too.

Sorry to derail. That doesn't answer why historically your question about lack of contraception, just thinking about how it would be today if it wasn't an option.

Nigerian population figures are greatly exaggerated. There simply isn't enough evidence to support the projections. Families are getting smaller not larger. Politicians tweak the figures because larger populated areas get more central government funding. Western political scientists simply extrapolate using these manipulated figures.

Abstinence. For women sex was looked upon as dirty and you weren't supposed to want to have sex. It was something that women were supposed to "endure"
My paternal grandmother was shocked that my mother was able to be sterilised. She didn't realise that such an operation existed and asked my mum if she didn't want any more children she didn't just stop having sex at 32

Interesting isn't it.
DH grandma (b. 1900) had 13 children, only one of whom died at birth. They were very, very poor. All babies bf. The first 4 or 5 has 13 months between then around 2 years. Any larger gaps I assume there were miscarriages but don't know.

The last was a surprise and MIL (then 17) remembers her mother crying as she'd thought it was finally the menopause. Her father didn't take no for an answer (tiny house, not much privacy).
Tellingly Mil had 2.

No one on my Catholic foreign side had that many, 7 seems to be about it, they were wealthier (not wealthy).

I would have thought withdrawal and abstinence would have been used a fair amount.

They didn't approve of sex before marriage. There's also the sad truth about back street abortions which sadly left some women unable to have more children due to the shoddy procedures.

I’m guessing abstinence?

My grandparents were born turn of the century. Grandmother was one of 14, 11 made it past birth and 9 made it to adulthood. No doubt there were also miscarriages back then that were not recognised as such, people didn’t pee on a stick the week before their period was due, get happy and then upset when there was nothing 3 weeks later so one could argue it was a more positive time in this regard.

My grandfather was one of three. Apparently there was to be a fourth but his mum went to see a woman who ‘took care of that sort of thing’ and told her to also fix it so she had no more kids. Lucky she didn’t die but given she had an extremely abusive alcoholic husband who pissed his pay packet away on the first day and expected her to magic food out of thin air for the rest of the week and fend the bailiffs off she thought it was worth taking the risk. Life was not great for women back then. I think it was a pretty common way to deal with unwanted pregnancy.

Causing abortions was really really common.

Tansy tea is one that was mentioned on Game of thrones and from the Tansy wiki page "During the Middle Ages and later, high doses were used to induce abortions."

Rue another plant "It is UNSAFE for both mother and unborn child to take rue during pregnancy or breast-feeding. Rue can cause uterine contractions, which can cause a miscarriage. That’s why rue is used to cause an abortion. But it also has serious effects for the mother. Some women who have tried using rue to cause an abortion have died." -from webMD

From the Abortifacient wiki page
"In English law, abortion did not become illegal until 1803. English folk practice before and after that time held that fetal life was not present until quickening. "Women who took drugs before that time would describe their actions as 'restoring the menses' or 'bringing on a period'."[21] Abortifacients used by women in England in the 19th century (not necessarily safe or effective) included diachylon, savin, ergot of rye, pennyroyal, nutmeg, rue, squills, and hiera picra,[22] the latter being a mixture of powdered aloe and canella.[23]"

Add that to poor healthcare, high infant mortality, malnutrition, natural family planning etc as you can see why not every family was 14 children strong.

Looking back on my family tree, the number of children increases each generation.

My family tree is neatly split: one side Roman Catholic the other Anglican. All four grandparents are from 7 plus children (from same parents and survived infancy numbers), and that’s with the 7 children family having been from a second marriage, where the mother (my great grand mother) was older when married, having had three (survived infancy) children already. She had 7 more. The last when she was 46.

Generation back from that smallest family has 11 children. (That’s on the Catholic side by the way.) What is similar is their social economic group. Think that had more influence on family size.

Abortions were definitely a thing, always have been, safe abortions, not so much.

They didn't avoid it, is the basic answer. Shitty for them but probably why the human race continued.

Women's rights are a very, very new phenomenon historically speaking, and they were built partly because of and alongside increasing sexual freedom.

My friend was adopted. All she knew about her birth family was that her parents were married and already had several children. They couldn't cope with another so put her up for adoption.