Deliver: An Etymological History of Giving Birth

This episode takes a look at the history of the use of the word "deliver" in relation to childbirth.   REFERENCES: Exodus 1:19. Retrieved from https://biblehub.com/text/exodus/1-19.htm Oxford English Dictionary (2019). Deliver. Retrieved from https://www-oed-com.erl.lib.byu.edu/view/Entry/49470?rskey=blB3K2&result=2#eid   TRANSCRIPT: Hi, so we are here today to talk about the word deliver. We touched on this a little bit in previous episode, number 18, with Rebecca Dekker. She is the founder of Evidence Based Birth and the author of a book called, “Babies are Not Pizzas: They're Born, Not Delivered. I had a little conversation with her during that episode about the use of that word, how she feels that it's very problematic and puts the birthgiver in a passive position, not an active position, and postions them as a passive recipient of care to be acted upon--delivered from some… from the burden of a baby, rather than being a life-giving agent giving birth to a child. So I had a little conversation on my Facebook group, Birth Words Community. If you are not part of it, go over to Facebook, type in Birth Words Community, and request to join us there. We’d love to have you. We talk about the power of words in relation to pregnancy, birth and the postpartum period. So I had a little conversation in that group about the word deliver. And I said in this episode with Rebecca Dekker, it was brought up, she feels strongly about it. She talked about how she has family, I believe a brother-in-law, who doesn't see that it's problematic because he doesn't feel that it's used very often as the doctor saying, “I'm going to deliver your baby,” but rather the mother saying, “I'm going to deliver my baby.” Rebecca is troubled by the history again, that puts the birth giver in a passive position. So I wanted to tap into some other people and see how they felt about the word. And I got a variety of responses. Some said, “you know, I’ve never really thought about it and it doesn't really bother me. That's just kind of what we say.” And others were really passionate about, “I really don't like that word. Why did we start using it?” And others took a kind of a middle ground position saying, “I really don't like it if we say that a care provider delivers the baby or especially delivers the mother. But if we're saying it in terms of the mother is delivering her baby, the birthgiver is delivering the baby. That seems like an empowering use of the word.” So that conversation got me wondering about the history of the word deliver in childbirth. So I was thinking back, where do I know…what are some old texts that I'm familiar with that use the word deliver for childbirth? And the Old Testament came to mind. I know that that word is used in relation to childbirth. So I was in interested to look and see how it's used and what the history of that is. So the first instance, I think, in the Old Testament is referring to the Jewish people who are in bondage. And there's a decree from the pharaoh that all the babies of the Jewish people are to be killed. The midwives tell the pharaoh that, “Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women, they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive.” And you heard in that translation, I said, “give birth.” That's the New International Version, which uses the words “give birth”. But in the King James Version, which is a more classical version of the Bible, written in the early 1600s… In that version, it says, “The midwife said unto Pharaoh, because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women, for they are lively, and are delivered ere the midwives come in and to them.” And that word delivered. It was interesting to me that that's different in these different translations as the midwives are saying, “These women give birth before we get there. So we can't do anything about following the decree to kill the sons of the Hebrew women.” The context of that story aside, which is an awesome story about midwives standing up for what's right…But let's set that aside and focus on the use of the word delivery here, delivered, because it's very interesting to me that in the 1600s, when the Bible was translated into the King James Version, the word delivery was used there. In the New International Version, though, says, give birth, not delivery. So I looked at the history of the Hebrew, the language, that of antiquity, that the Bible was originally written in. And as far as I've been able to tell, anywhere in the Old Testament, the Hebrew the verbs used to describe giving birth are specific to giving birth, bringing forth children. The word delivery also comes up frequently in the Old Testament, but it seems to have been introduced in later translations such as the King James Version. So in the Hebrew text the word used for deliver—as in delivering from evil, delivering from enemies, meaning to save somebody, is a different word. In the Hebrew text, a different word entirely was used than the word used to refer to the act of giving birth. And somewhere along the line, the two got commingled so that the word deliver was used for both. So let's see what Oxford English Dictionary has to say. The Oxford English Dictionary goes through the history of a word and its usage in actual context. So the first thing that I came across in the Oxford English Dictionary was that the word deliver means “to free, rid, divest or clear of or from.” And it did gives an example from 1632, to deliver, “deliver of her pain in childbirth.” Interesting. 1632 and we're talking about delivering from pain in childbirth. Interesting, okay. We've talked about pain, you can listen back to that episode for more on that, but here's the use of the word deliver in relation to childbirth. Then I scrolled down some more and came across this definition of the word deliver: “to disburden a woman (of the fetus), to bring to childbirth. In passive, to bring to give birth to a child or offspring. Rarely said of beasts.” And then, “the active use of the word is late and chiefly in obstetrical use.” Okay, that whole definition is just packed with interesting things. To start with, “to disburden of the fetus, to bring to childbirth.” So that is very much somebody else acting on the woman and “disburdening” her of the fetus. “In passive, to give birth to a child or offspring.” So you can passively be delivered. Prolematic. “Rarely said of beasts.” That gives me pause, like we don't really use that word. And historically, Oxford English Dictionary is looking back at the historical use of the term. It is rarely used when talking about animals giving birth, as if we have more confidence in their ability to do it on their own as active agents. Interesting. And then, “the active use of the word is late and chiefly and obstetrical use.” And that's the use that we talked about a little bit before. If somebody's saying, “I delivered my baby, that active use of the word, chiefly in obstetrical use. And I think that's an instance of somebody trying to reclaim the word that historically positioned birthgivers in a very passive position. Now these people, these women, are saying, and those supporting them are saying, “Oh, this is an active job that the woman is doing. Let's put her in this active role as she is delivering her child but still using the same word trying to reclaim it.” Okay, interesting. So, let's look at the history. The first instance that Oxford English Dictionary cites is in 1325: “Mary should be delivered of her child.” Again, dis burdened of her fetus In 1400… “We…This is kind of in like Middle English so it's a little tricky. But the word delivered again is used for “women are delivered.” 1480: “Again the time come that she should be delivered of her child.” We go into the 1500s and it says, “to have my wife with child safely delivered.” Shakespeare in “A Winter's Tale” in 1616: “She is something before her time delivered.” 1676: “The third time they sent and begged that I would deliver her” There's the doctor doing the delivery. And 1754 Treatise on Midwifery says, “a better method of delivering in laborious and preternatural cases…” That goes on, but this word was used. Again, the first instance we saw was 1325. Now we're in the 1750s. And it continues to give examples through the 1800s, both in medical texts and lay texts where the word delivered is used to mean “disburdening the woman of her baby.” I need to dig more into the history. And if you're a history buff, and you've got some sort of an inkling of why in the 1300s, going into the 1400s, throughout the 1600s, and all the way into the 1800s, this became more prevalent that we talked about being delivered of a child, whereas it wasn't before, send me a message. I want to hear your thoughts, hear about what you're thinking about this. Because I think a common perspective is that people say, “Oh, well when birth moved to the hospital, then people started putting power in the hands of doctors who were delivering babies rather than women who are giving birth to them.” But really, the decline of home birth happened more over the 20th century, in around 1900 is when we started seeing that shift towards hospital births. And this clearly predates that. So I need to do some more research. But that's what I've done so far on the history of the term deliver, delivered. I think it's interesting that in some circles people are trying to re-appropriate the term and say, “That has been used to put us in a passive position, we're going to reclaim it and talk about delivering our babies.” And that can be really effective for some people. And it's been done for various terms throughout history, like the term Yankee referring to Americans. The British used it as a derogatory term and it's been reclaimed. And there are many other examples of such terms. And that can be a really effective thing. But for some people, the only effective thing is to completely divorce themselves from the history of the term that has been used to put them in a disempowered position. And they want to use a different term. And I think that's also returning to the early use, as we talked about in the Hebrew text of the Old Testament and the story of the Hebrew women giving birth to their babies before the midwives could get there. That was the historical use. This word was not used for the word for delivering, being disburdened or saved was not used in the same context as giving birth. So for some, it is more powerful to return to that original intent and purpose and talk of giving birth, bringing life creating life, and completely separating ourselves from the use of the term delivery. So I hope that was an interesting little travel through times, courtesy of the Oxford English Dictionary as we looked a little bit about the history of the word, deliver, delivery in childbirth and why it has been problematic and what is being done about it now. I'm sure that this topic will continue to come up in subsequent episodes. I'm also preparing an episode where we'll talk about, in other languages, how do we say to give birth? And how does it affect the culture of birth in those places. So again, if you know of, if you have experience, giving birth or assisting or supporting somebody with birth, who primarily spoke a different language, I'd love to hear your thoughts, your perspective, your experience, about the different uses of the word. That's all for our episode today.   Transcribed by https://otter.ai