The big change happened roughly between the 16th and 19th centuries. Catchy, right? It wasn’t a single date on a calendar but a slow, seismic shift in how society viewed women’s bodies and expertise.
The Catholic Church itself started pulling back around the 1500s, citing “modesty” concerns. The logic was that nuns shouldn’t see naked bodies, even though they’d been doing it for centuries. Irony doesn’t even begin to cover it.
Then, in the 1700s and 1800s, professionalization hit childbirth like a freight train. Men with medical degrees wanted to “scientize” birth, pushing aside the wise women—nuns included. They called it progress; the nuns called it a Tuesday.
So, What Actually Brought the Curtain Down?
A few things: the Council of Trent (1545-1563) really tightened the rules. Nuns were told to stay cloistered, which meant no more running out to deliver a farmer’s daughter. Their world got smaller, and so did their role in the birthing room.
Call the Midwife: True Stories of East London's 1950s Nun-Midwives
Add to that the rise of male-midwives, or “man-midwives,” as they were snarkily called. These guys used tools like forceps, and suddenly, women’s intuition got thrown in the corner. The nuns’ herbal remedies and gentle hands were no match for a man with a shiny metal gadget.
By the late 19th century, the shift was complete. Nuns became nurses—in hospitals, not homes. They traded birthing stools for bedpans. And we lost something precious: a tradition of compassionate, community-based care that was two thousand years old.
