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Episode 214: Appalachian Folk Practices pt. 2
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Welcome back, Witches! This week we're continuing our Appalachian Folk Practices series with Part 2, where we're exploring the traditions of Granny Women and Midwifery. We'll dive into the history, healing practices, folk magic, and vital role these women played in their communities, preserving generations of herbal knowledge and spiritual wisdom. So get in, Loser, because this week we're heading deep into the heart of Appalachia to uncover the legacy of the mountain healers.
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Music by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio- The Witch
Resources
- Beyer, Rebecca. Mountain Magic. 2023. Quarto Publishing Group.
- Cieslik. Appalachian Folk Magic: Generations of “Granny Witchcraft” and Spiritual Work. (2023) Folk Life. https://folklife.si.edu/magazine/appalachian-folk-magic?__cf_chl_f_tk=8fzfzAQFYn7mMFSquNdGHhCDsBX3iom2mRy0xGyX1FY-1783080080-1.0.1.1-8zrvMLrs.8InGv47rkwjCwommxPHbvVEfRz3DPmggvA
- Carmichael, Tim. The Granny Women of Appalachia: Mountain Medicine and Folk Healing. (2025). Appalachian Memories. https://appalachianmemories.org/2025/02/22/the-granny-women-of-appalachia-mountain-medicine-and-folk-healing/
- Scott, Shaunna. “Grannies, Mothers and Babies: An Examination of Traditional Southern Appalachian Midwifery.” Central Issues in Anthropology, vol. 4, no. 2, 1982, pp. 17–30., doi:10.1525/cia.1982.4.2.17.
- Cavender, Anthony. Folk Medicine in Southern Appalachia. The University of North Carolina Press, 2003.
- Jess Kimball (2025). A brief look at midwifery in Southern Appalachia. Jess Kimball. https://www.jess-kimball.com/blog/a-brief-look-at-midwifery-in-southern-appalachia#/
- Lucas Adcock (2026). Midwife of the Mountains- training for birth-work in Appalachia. The Pocahantas Times. https://pocahontastimes.com/midwife-of-the-mountains-training-for-birth-work-in-appalachia/
- Hunter Library Omeka Collections. Midwifery in Early 20th Century Appalachia. https://digitalhumanities.wcu.edu/omeka/exhibits/show/frank-fry/midwiferyinappalachia
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Transcript
Introduction and Theme Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
Do you feel drawn to learn more about witchcraft and the occult, but feel lost on where to start? Then welcome to Get In Loser We're Doing Witchcraft, a podcast all about what it means to be a witch and where to get started on your journey.
00:00:11
Speaker
Join us as we navigate through various witchy topics and share what we've learned about the
Part Two: Appalachian Folk Practices
00:00:15
Speaker
craft. So get in, witches, for part two of our Appalachian Folk Practices series, this time focusing on granny magic and midwifery.
00:00:50
Speaker
so this episode is we're going to be releasing way after this happened but have you seen that's fucking alex reeds tarot bullshit yeah oh my god hailey williams has Change the lyrics.
00:01:05
Speaker
As you should. Like, I am so mad about this. Here's the thing is, like, I am not a huge fan of, like, the community tarot. like Yeah. me tell you about the situation. Because even if your phone – or even if, like, okay, something comes up and it's just like, oh, this this relates to me in my life, your phone is fucking listening to you. Like, talk about shit that's going on in your life. So that is why that's coming
Alex Reads Tarot's Religious Shift
00:01:32
Speaker
up.
00:01:32
Speaker
um However, what I will say about Alex Reads Tarot is I really, whenever her videos, I never followed her on social media, but whenever her videos would pop up, I would always watch them because I like the way that she interpreted the meanings of cards. Yeah.
00:01:48
Speaker
And I just thought, and I've been like, I would see her videos pop up for years, years, even before, because she went through this phase where she dyed her hair black before she was blonde. And then she like, I'm so disappointed in her.
00:02:04
Speaker
I'm disappointed in her. Well, she's super Christian now, apparently. Yeah. And just the way the way that it was done feels so sleazy because I have seen a few other creators talk about how for the past year, whenever she would show up on their For You page, they would just kind of swipe because – They're like, ugh, it seems something something feels off. Yeah, something's weird. And that's how I felt too. But I didn't – I just thought, oh, it's just me. Like, I'm just getting bored with these videos. Maybe my attention span isn't, like, where it needs to be. No.
00:02:35
Speaker
It's because we could all feel that she wasn't being fucking genuine. And it just really pisses me off that, like, she would then – basically take this platform that she has built and then segue it into, well, I want to save your souls because actually tarot is demonic. And Tarot has nothing to do with Satanism or demonism, like, anything. And even if it did, who gives a fuck?
00:03:00
Speaker
Did she change the platform to that? or Because I read somewhere she just deleted her entire account. I don't know, though. I didn't look any of it up. I was just like, that's wow. I and think she created new account for her Bible stuff, but she... From my understanding, I think she kept her old account, but hit like she didn't delete the videos. She hid the videos. Oh, God. So she still has the views on them. Yeah.
00:03:25
Speaker
And I just, it's so sleazy to me. i just, you know what? You can believe how you want to believe, but there is nothing evil about tarot. Yep.
00:03:36
Speaker
And it just really pisses me off that, like somebody said that they commented on that video before she turned the comments off and was like, oh, so you met a guy, didn't you? And she blocked them and deleted the comment. Of course she did. Yeah, of course she did. so That's hilarious though.
00:03:55
Speaker
But we're not talking about Alex Riztaro and we're not giving her a platform. We are not. What are we talking about today?
Role of Granny Women in Appalachian Culture
00:04:02
Speaker
We are talking about, well, this is our second episode on Appalachian folk practices and we're talking about granny women and midwifery and the Appalachian folk traditions.
00:04:14
Speaker
Yes. And I am just going to preface this with the fact that my piece is going to be probably quite a bit shorter than yours because the more I researched on granny women, the more it was pushing me into midwifery. Yeah. And was like, or as someone has said it once and my brain keeps going back to it, midwifery. Midwifery. What do you think? It's not way that I was like, that is not how that word is said. Yeah.
00:04:41
Speaker
So the more I was researching, the more it just kept going into that piece. And I was like, well, Sam is covering that. So I'd be like, nope, let's go to a different direction. Let's try this way, try that way. So I feel like I'm probably not going to have a whole lot.
00:04:54
Speaker
mean, have a good amount, but it's not going to be very long. I, you know what? I think the same with mine too, because mine kept going into like Granny Women as well. Okay. I think it's just so intertwined. that is. it was hard to separate it out the way that we did it. But we've got you guys covered. You guys are going to get all the information either way.
00:05:15
Speaker
So I'm going to start us off with the background and the history of granny women. So you may remember from episode 209, which was part one, but Appalachian folk healing wasn't created by one culture. It developed over centuries as Cherokee and Choctaw plant knowledge blended with healing traditions brought by Scottish, Irish, English, German, and African peoples who settled in the mountains.
00:05:41
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The result of this blending is what we now recognize as a distinctly apple Appalachian tradition. The term granny woman wasn't originally a mystical title either.
00:05:54
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It referred to respected older women who served as healers, midwives, herbalists, and keepers of family knowledge. They were often the medical experts of their communities because doctors were either scarce or just not trusted at all.
00:06:08
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Grannywomen served as community caregivers throughout Appalachia. They were often the first and sometimes the only source of healthcare care for families living in isolated mountain communities.
00:06:19
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Appalachian communities were geographically isolated throughout much of the 18th and 19th century. Medical care could be days away, making grannywomen trusted pillars of their communities who relied on observation, experience, and generations of practical knowledge.
00:06:37
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While the title Granny Woman is strongly associated with Appalachia, nearly every culture has had similar community healers. What made Appalachian Granny Women unique was the specific blend of cultural traditions and the mountain environment that shaped their practices.
00:06:54
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Although the image of a granny woman centers on elderly women, Appalachian folk healing has historically included men as well, and that holds true still today. Their practices were passed down through generations rather than through formal schooling.
00:07:10
Speaker
Knowledge was shared with families by observation and apprenticeship, and rather than learning from books, Children often followed parents and grandparents into the woods to identify medicinal plants like junsing, sassafras, mountain mint, spicebush, and teaberry.
00:07:28
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And I'm sorry if you guys can hear that. It's like windy here and we have those raladins on the window and they're metal and it's like rattling behind me. oh I hear it. Is coming through? Okay. It's like so loud over here and I'm like the whole time just like pausing for a second to give it a second to like stop. It seems like it's really loud over here. So hopefully it's not coming through.
00:07:50
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They learned not only how to identify them, but also when to harvest and to prepare them. Timing often mattered. Many Appalachian healers believed certain herbs were most effective when harvested during specific seasons, moon phases, or times of day, reflecting a worldview that connected nature cycles with healing. And this is something we're seeing more today on the herbalism side too There's been a lot of push and focus on how like when you harvest during different cycles of the moon, what that does for the herb's potency, which I love this connection. i was reading all this and I went down a whole rabbit hole because I've been learning about it.
00:08:30
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I loved it. That's cool. Yeah. And then knowledge wasn't just about plants. It also included reading weather patterns, understanding animal behavior, preserving food, and knowing how to care for both people and livestock.
00:08:45
Speaker
These skills made granny women invaluable to everyday life. Grannywomen delivered babies, treated illnesses and injuries with herbal remedies, cared for the sick, offered comfort during death and grieving, and were often consulted for everyday health concerns long before doctors and hospitals were accessible.
00:09:04
Speaker
Many mountain remedies were highly practical. Grannywomen relied on local plants that they knew intimately. Historical examples include catnip tea for hives,
00:09:16
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Herbal salves for burns and poultices for wounds, and then just remedies for stomach ailments, bladder issues, and even warts. Their work was largely unpaid. Between roughly mid-1800s and the late 1900s, countless Appalachian women cared for neighbors, delivered babies, and and shared medicinal knowledge without formal recognition or compensation, helping communities survive in isolated areas.
00:09:41
Speaker
Granny women often treated the whole person rather than just the illness, and this is something that we are also getting back to in herbalism, which I absolutely love because modern medicine kind of took us away from that in the sense that we now just treat the symptoms and then like get more symptoms because we're never treating like the root cause of it. So their focus was always looking at the person as ah whole and saying, what what is the root cause of this and how can we prevent it from becoming more symptoms in the future? And I, again, another connection with herbalism that I was going down all these rabbit holes. But healing could include herbal medicine, nutrition, rest, emotional support, prayer, and practical advice.
00:10:22
Speaker
And it was all viewed as important parts of recovery. Many granny women also cared for livestock because their family's animals were essential to survival. So their knowledge often extended to treating common ailments in horses, cattle, chickens, and other farm animals. So they were like the community doctors for the people and also like...
00:10:43
Speaker
low-key community vets too, which is crazy. Many granny women practiced what was often called folk magic or mountain conjurer, and this could include healing prayers, blessings, charms, bible verses spoken over an illness, or rituals meant to protect people, livestock, and homes. For many Appalachian communities, spirituality and healing weren't separate, they worked together. Many practitioners considered themselves devout Christians, and they viewed their healing abilities as gifts from God.
00:11:13
Speaker
And then the book of Psalms in the Bible also holds a particularly important place in Appalachian folk healing. Specific Psalms were sometimes recited over burns, fevers, or other illnesses, reflecting the belief that spoken scripture could work alongside herbal remedies.
00:11:31
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Folk practices often blended practical medicine with symbolic acts. A remedy might include both an herbal poultice and a spoken prayer, with each considered an important part of the healing process.
00:11:44
Speaker
And, of course, as modern medicine became more available during the 20th century, especially with licensing laws, hospitals, and increased access to physicians, many traditional healers and midwives were discouraged or even pushed out of their practice because much of their knowledge was passed down orally rather than written down,
00:12:06
Speaker
a significant amount of Appalachian folk healing has been lost with each generation. Today, granny women are sometimes romanticized or even portrayed as witches in popular culture. Historically, however, they were primarily respected caregivers. While some incorporated spiritual practices into their healing, their central role was caring for their neighbors, using the knowledge and resources available to them.
00:12:30
Speaker
Interest in granny women has grown alongside renewed appreciation for herbalism, traditional ecological knowledge, and Appalachian cultural history. Researchers, herbalists, and descendants are working to preserve these traditions before more of this knowledge disappears. More than anything, granny women represent resilience. Their knowledge was built through generations of observation, lived experience, faith, and an intimate relationship with the Appalachian landscape.
00:12:59
Speaker
Their legacy isn't just about the folklore or herbs. It's about neighbors caring for neighbors when there's nowhere else to turn. So I'm going to pivot just a little bit, but like not really pivot because it's yeah pretty similar.
History of Appalachian Midwives
00:13:14
Speaker
i'm going to talk a little bit about midwifery and the Appalachian folk traditions. And ah so as far as a background history, this is pretty much going to be very similar to what Tiffany talked about already. And so it's just, it is what it is. Okay. So as Tiffany already mentioned, trained physicians were not often available in Appalachia. due to many reasons and the mountain geography being one of those because it made it difficult for physicians to travel through.
00:13:41
Speaker
And the Appalachian midwives were more of an apprenticeship as a tradition. There was no formal schooling for most of them. Moral tradition and the importance of passing knowledge through generations was the big emphasis here when it comes to midwives, because most midwives learned from accompanying experienced midwives to births and observing for many years over time, these different births. And then they would gradually assist with more complex tasks, remembering techniques, remedies, and the warning signs that they've seen throughout their experience. And so that's how they learned through very hands-on learning. What is that thing? It's like see, do or some shit and then teach, see, do, teach something. i Okay. Anyway, it's a thing. I don't know that But yeah, so where you see it, you do it and then you teach it to the next person. That's kind of health how they functioned. And the midwives held trust within that community. Midwives were often the few literate women in these isolated communities, but that doesn't mean that all of them were were literate. There were many midwives who function on just memory and experience instead of written text. And I think that that speaks volumes for the just knowledge that in a lot of situations were lost because it's like, okay, you have somebody who isn't even literate, but understands not just how to birth a baby, but how to care for extreme situations that happen in birth, which can be one of the most dangerous times of being a woman. So as far as daily responsibilities, they had many outside of just delivering babies. They were community caregivers, just like granny women. They confirmed pregnancies. They helped with infertility concerns. They advised on nutrition, prepared families for labor. They stayed with
00:15:21
Speaker
the family for days after birth and to monitor both the mom and the baby. They helped with breastfeeding. They cared for miscarriages and stillbirths. And they helped women through menopause, which I thought was really cool because throughout history and even now, like there is not a lot of information on menopause and perimenopausal things that were just changes that happened with women. And so the fact that they also helped with that, because i imagine that is a very confusing time for women.
00:15:49
Speaker
And to not understand what's going on with your body, to have somebody there that helps carry you through that process, I think is really sweet. When it's also just full circle, right? Like if they're helping from the very beginning and then also helping in that end process, that's like the full cycle of that. I think it's just people. It's like the entire life cycle just in general. Like i' just think it's so sweet.
00:16:11
Speaker
So as far as practices go, they they use a lot of herbal remedies in pregnancy and postpartum. Hot ginger tea was used to ease labor pains. Catnip, as um Tiffany also already mentioned to help with hives, was also said to help ensure a baby's first bowel movement. And it would help with the liver. And it was sometimes used to feed infants if the mother's breast milk was lacking or maybe if she wasn't producing enough breast Mm-hmm.
00:16:36
Speaker
There was also teas made from chimney soot, apple bark, and or black gumbark to stop bleeding. Pepper, rattleweed, blueberry, raspberry, bluebell, ginger, and black gumbark tea were also used to speed up labor.
00:16:52
Speaker
And jellico or jellico root was used to help with afterbirth pains. And then to treat mastitis, warm poultices made of milk, bread, onion, and cornmeal, or cow dung or potato skins ah was used, which is disgusting. I will say as a woman who has had mastitis two times, one with each kid, the first time I went to the emergency room, the second time I knew what was happening and I chopped up like six cloves of garlic and I just took them like pills with water and that helped. browser ball
00:17:28
Speaker
Garlic can be a go-to for almost anything. Yeah. So I was like, cause I was like, like I ain't going back to the goddamn emergency room and getting shot in my ass again. I'm going to try this garlic and it worked.
00:17:38
Speaker
It worked. So I'm sure. Garlic is such a little miracle thing. I'm sure my breast milk tasted like garlic for Avery for, I don't know how long, but. she like garlic now? yeah I use a lot in cooking, so maybe.
00:17:52
Speaker
But yeah, so additionally, camphor soaked into a cloth was used to help draw milk from engorged breasts. And in some cases, puppies, piglets, or baby goats were encouraged to suckle breasts to draw milk as there was no such thing as breast pumps during this time. So I don't know if they like got it started and then they pulled it.
00:18:11
Speaker
That's what I'm assuming. Like, I don't know, but I don't know. i don't know if i'd be down for that, honestly. You're like, come on, gizmo. Yeah. Oh, thank you. That's so weird. aren But I mean, you got to think like in an isolated place, they did what what they had with what they had. Yeah.
00:18:30
Speaker
As far as folk practices and beliefs as well, it was common during pregnancy for women to be told not to pass under mare's neck to prevent them from carrying their baby an additional two months. Oof. and Which sounds a miserable. Yeah. Women were also told not to raise their arms above their head, as it was believed that this could cause the umbilical cord to wrap around the baby's neck.
00:18:53
Speaker
And to induce labor, they would use a practice called snuffing or quilling, which is where you would sniff pepper from a plate to hopefully induce a sneeze attack that would bring on contractions.
00:19:05
Speaker
Huh. That would probably just make me want to pee my pants, but and maybe it helped. Who knows? Yeah, who knows? And then during labor, a sharp object like an axe, knife, or scissors was placed under the mother's bed to cut the labor pains. And I've heard this before. i don't know if I heard it in movies or if I've read books with it. I don't know, but I i was very well aware of that one.
00:19:27
Speaker
Yeah. After a child was born, the afterbirth was... disposed either by burying it or disposing it in a body of running water to prevent the mother from having something called childbed fever. and Childbed fever was a bacterial infection of the endometrium that is caused by unsanitary birthing procedures. And it was believed that having the mother remain in bed for hours or even several days after birth was a way to combat it. And if the mother contracted childbed fever, it was sometimes treated by hanging a piece of meat fat coated in pepper around her neck or having sulfur blown into her throat. And I'm just going to say right now just kill me because i was like, neither of those things sound um like anything I want. Yeah. Especially if I'm already miserable because I just had a baby. And they're like, smelly meat fat covered in pepper. You have to wear it.
00:20:18
Speaker
And I have an infection of my lady bits. No, thank you. No, thank you. Let me just roll this sulfur down your throat. Yeah. And they also, like when I was reading about this, I forgot to put this in my notes, but There was like an assumption that for childbed fever, if you change the sheets too early after giving birth, that that's what caused it. And like, no, I'm going to need you change you shirt these sheets immediately. Because the shit that comes out of you whenever you give birth with all the blood and like the your water's breaking and everything. No, I don't want to lay in that.
00:20:51
Speaker
I don't that. You what the sulfur thing makes me think of, though? Did you ever, like, when you were a kid, if you had hiccups, did they ever light a match and put it in a glass of water and then you drank it? No.
00:21:02
Speaker
Yeah, so that was something that I grew up with. I thought that was normal. Maybe it's not. I don't know. but No. But that's what it made me think of because, like, that you could taste, like, the sulfur from the match.
00:21:13
Speaker
Did it work? Yeah. That's – my grandparents, anytime I had the hiccups, they would like put a match in a glass of water for me. Like they would light it and then drop it into the water.
00:21:25
Speaker
gosh. I've of And then i would just drink the whole glass of water and then your hiccups would go away. Yeah. That is interesting. No, we as a kid, we were told if you have hiccups – You take a ah drink of water, hold it in your mouth, and then turn upside down and drink it upside down.
00:21:43
Speaker
And it would get rid of the headache. Upside down? but Yeah, you got to drink water upside down. oh I don't know. If you're listening to this, listen and you have how do you get rid of hiccups? I wonder how many ways we were all taught to do like this different thing to cure hiccups.
00:22:03
Speaker
So was that and you got to be like, if they're really bad, someone has to scare you. I have heard that one before. Anthony's grandma always told us to like you had to hold your breath.
00:22:14
Speaker
And then like when you would go to hiccup, you'd have to swallow. That's how he was taught to get rid of hiccups. Man. Okay. So there's got to be a million different ways. We need to go. And is this like a geographical thing? Like I want to know.
00:22:28
Speaker
we're putting this out. Listeners, please tell us. Send us your emails. Comment on Spotify. We'll make a Venn diagram. We would like to know for research purposes, how were you told to get rid of hiccups?
00:22:43
Speaker
Okay, anyway, going back to what I'm really talking about. drop topic And then as far as hygiene practices during this time, so before the late 1800s, we didn't really understand how microscopic organisms caused infections and illnesses were more often contributed to things like, quote unquote, bad air, imbalances within the body, environmental conditions, and sometimes religious or spiritual beliefs. But by the early nineteen hundreds many Appalachian midwives routinely washed their hands before attending a birth with either soap or homemade lye soap, and families were often given instructions on how to prepare for a birth by making sure that there were plenty of clean sheets, blankets, towels, and other c cloths for both the baby and postpartum bleeding.
00:23:28
Speaker
And midwives also used boiling water to help sterilize and keep things clean. And they would ensure a fire was going to provide warmth and to keep the water heated. And all of these things, like tying it back, like these were things that I don't think anybody really taught them. Like, hey, the I can't remember what the the theory is, but the germ theory, like no one actually taught them germ theory. It was just understanding that like, hey, maybe we should keep this area clean and we're dealing with bodily fluids and things. And so, yeah. But looking at birthing positions, Appalachian midwives also understood that labor isn't a one-size-fits-all situation for women. And often women labor better when in upright position, which this is totally different from what – I mean, I think now in labor practices, we're kind of going back to what is more natural for giving birth. But for many years, women were just told you have to birth lying down on your back, which is not the natural way to give birth. Do you know where that came from?
00:24:28
Speaker
No. It was actually one of the disgusting kings preferred to watch his wives and mistresses give birth. And that was the best position for him to be able to watch.
00:24:39
Speaker
That's gross. What king was that? I don't remember. don't remember. I don't know. i was It was doing great for like a school paper for something. um and I had to do something on like birthing. And I was reading this and I was like, this is disgusting. And we just kept that going forward.
00:24:59
Speaker
I hate that. yeah I'll have to look it up and send it to you because I yeah like i was just mind blown that that's how like medically they decided to keep women doing that. And I'm like, most women actually don't have very comfortable births that way. Yeah, no, it's it's very difficult. Yeah. Yeah.
00:25:22
Speaker
better positions for birthing include things like squatting, having the mother lay on her side. Um, and there was also an emphasis on swaying, singing, praying, and roaring through contractions. Um, Which is something that I know that like whenever I had Avery, they kind of taught me how to do because whenever you see birth in the movies, it's like very much like people are screaming.
00:25:47
Speaker
You're not screaming when you're having a baby because if you're actually pushing the baby out, you cannot scream. Like it's totally different. Yeah. um But anyway- They also kept the birth records and genealogy genealogies of families in that area because they were present for the birth of hundreds of babies in their local community. They knew who was related to whom, family lineages, inherited medical medical conditions or like concerns that certain people have. They understood all of that because they were there and present for all of those births.
00:26:22
Speaker
And they had a relationship with the community. So unlike doctors, Appalachian midwives already lived in that area. And because they lived in the community, they could arrive much faster than a doctor who would need to travel through mountain terrain, cross rivers, et cetera, to see patients.
00:26:37
Speaker
And then I was reading about this in Eastern Kentucky during the early 20th century. Midwives reportedly outnumbered doctors by 14 1. So... That's why they were more often used. like Outside of just the geographical concerns, there were more of them. They were neighbors, trusted confidence, family friends, church members, advisors. As I mentioned, they were present for multiple generations of birth. And historically, pregnancy was viewed as a natural, normal part of life that didn't require a physician. So ah midwives were the go-to person for that.
Impact of Professional Medicine on Midwifery
00:27:11
Speaker
And so looking a little bit more at midwives versus doctors, Tiffany already mentioned that the rise of professional medicine during the late 1800s and early 1900s meant increases in licensing laws and the inevitable decline in traditional midwifery, especially as hospital births became the norm. And in fact, in Appalachia up until the 1940s, the reliance was on traditional midwifery and not doctors and hospitals for care.
00:27:35
Speaker
Outside of the relationship with the community and access, midwives were also a much cheaper alternative to care. Doctors typically charge between $10 to $30 for a delivery, but midwives fees were typically between $3 and $5. And in many cases, midwives were open to bartering, paying with food, gifts, or other goods instead of cash. And in some cases, midwives worked for free expecting nothing in return.
00:27:59
Speaker
And as hospitals and obstetricians became more common, midwifery was increasingly marginalized, especially with the introduction of strict licensing laws that made it very difficult for midwives to work.
00:28:10
Speaker
Even though these laws were supposedly put into place to improve maternal health, they disproportionately affected rural communities and people of color. And during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Physicians increasingly portrayed traditional midwives as unscientific, which also contributed to the shifting of home births to hospital births, which is really sad. and then to close this up, looking midwives and the challenges that they faced and how they were still able to show up for people. In some cases, even though they lived in the communities they worked, sometimes they would have to travel overseas.
00:28:40
Speaker
a long ways via horseback or on foot to get to a birthing mother. They were being called out in all kinds of weather. They also had limited supplies. a lot of midwives did not carry their own equipment into the homes that they were providing care in, and they would use whatever was available to them in the home that they were in. They would just make it work. And they also dealt with a high maternal and infant mortality rate, not because of the standard of care that they were providing, but because of just how dangerous it is to give birth in any timeline. We're still experiencing disproportionate rates of especially women of color dying during childbirth as well.
00:29:16
Speaker
And then lastly, there's an emotional toll of losing mothers and babies. Because they live where they work, they knew everyone they attended. And so I can't even imagine how difficult that would be to have to deal with that on regular basis.
00:29:28
Speaker
You bring up such a good point about like the maternal and infant mortality rate. Like It was always an issue in the past, and I don't think people realize that it's still an issue, even in America today, that we are still losing so many mothers and so many babies.
00:29:46
Speaker
They just think that, no this is America. Everything's great. Or this is Germany. Everything's great. But the mortality like infant and maternal mortality rate is still so high. It's insane. It is. yeah And again, especially in those like lower income communities and communities that are majority POC, we're seeing a lot of that still. Yeah.
00:30:08
Speaker
yeah And unfortunately, a lot of it, I think, has to do with the fact that there is not enough research done on women and our bodies. And even though birth throughout time has been a natural part of a woman's biology and and life, not enough research is done on keeping us safe. And going away from midwifery traditions where these women, maybe they didn't have the schooling, but they understood This is what this complication is. This is what this means. And this is how I deal with it because I've been taught and I've seen this so many times yeah going away from I'm sure that also contributed in an increase in that as well. so
Criticism of Medical Field's Approach to Women's Health
00:30:47
Speaker
For sure. And I mean, especially in the rise of medical care and like the licensing that that kind of pushed midwives and granny women out of these practices, essentially, this was like the rise of the male doctor So it was like women weren't allowed to be doctors when this first started. So on top of it being like newer, it also was men who didn't understand woman's body to begin with. yeah so And they still – so I actually just saw something about this.
00:31:20
Speaker
So, and this just blew my mind. So if you were a woman up until I think four months ago and you've had an episiotomy with giving birth, they were just cutting blindly because they did not understand. No research was done on nerve system in that area. So they were just cutting you. Just snipping it. Just snipping it. And this caused like a lot of nervous, like nerve damage issues for women. And they just now, like like four fucking months ago when this was when this is being recorded in July, so like four months ago was not that long ago. This is 2026.
00:31:58
Speaker
They finally mapped out the nerves in that area. but they like But if this was a man, if a man was giving birth, they would have already had that shit mapped. ah They'd probably already have a way to like pull the baby out of the body without any damage, period. Exactly. Yeah. And what's crazy about it is they didn't even need any sort of advancements in- like healthcare or, you know, medicine or anything to understand the mapping of those nerves. They just needed to look at a fucking cadaver yeah and map out those nerves.
00:32:30
Speaker
So anyway, I'll get off my cell phone. Love being a woman. My cell phone. Anyway, but we're still interested in your hiccup story. So tell us. Yes.
00:32:41
Speaker
Send us your emails on how you were taught to get rid of hiccups as a kid because now I'm invested in this. and daniel know We're doing our own science. Thank you. Yeah.
Podcast Closing and Listener Engagement
00:33:06
Speaker
That's a wrap on this episode of Get In Loser, We're Doing Witchcraft. We hope you had as much fun as we did. If you loved this episode, we'd be eternally grateful if you left us a five-star review wherever you listen to your podcasts. It helps more witches, seekers, and magical misfits find our show.
00:33:21
Speaker
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