Page 65 - Summer 2017 Journal

investigators believe, therefore, in the power of nutrition to remediate maternal and perinatal mortality at least over the long term.
Back in the 1930s, an English doctor named Kathleen Olga Vaughan reached similar con- clusions about the relevance of environmental influences. Dr. Vaughan extensively studied childbirth and factors associated with childbirth success or difficulty, doing first-hand research in various settings, including India, as well as extensively reviewing the scientific literature available at the time. In her fascinating vol- ume, Safe Childbirth: The Three Essentials,13 Vaughan firmly rejected the view of difficult childbirth as “a matter of chance” or as a turn of events “dependent upon the will of Heaven,” instead asserting unequivocally that childbirth difficulties resulted from violating “the fun- damental laws of health.” Far from viewing childbirth as universally dangerous, Vaughan assembled considerable evidence supporting her claim that labor is supremely uneventful when mothers-to-be are allowed to grow up in accordance with the “laws of health.” Stated an- other way, Vaughan argued that easy childbirth depended on “environment and the conditions in which the mother spent her childhood” [em- phasis in original].
To illustrate her arguments, Vaughan’s volume offers many interesting first- and second-hand observations of sub-populations of women for whom difficult childbirth was nearly unknown. Regular readers of Wise Traditions may find it noteworthy that many of her descriptions of women experiencing easy childbirth also called attention to the excellent dental health of the women and their children. For example, boatwomen in Kash- mir—who traveled with a milking goat or cow on board—“never had trouble in childbirth” and were “graceful, healthy, cheerful people, their smiling faces showing perfect teeth.”
For these women, “perfect teeth, good bodily development, and intelligence [were] the rule” [emphasis in original]. In fact, Vaughan devoted half a chapter to a discussion of the teeth and jaws as indicators of “good bodily development” and especially pelvic capacity. Based on her extensive theoretical and practical experience, Vaughan concluded that perfect teeth equate to easy childbirth, while conversely there is an “essential connection between civilization, caries and difficult childbirth.”
The importance of sunlight and an active life out of doors are recurrent themes in Safe Childbirth. Commenting on Indian women living in purdah (female seclusion), Vaughan noted that the women often led a life completely devoid of sunlight, causing many to develop osteomalacia (a form of bone weakening similar to rickets). Under such circumstances, it came as no surprise that the women had abnormally high rates of difficult labor. Vaughan commented, “In all countries and districts where teeth are good, the life is an open-air one with simple food; the food, of course, varies in different places and under different conditions, but the free open- air life is a constant factor.” Reinforcing the relevance of environmental factors, Vaughan also observed that easy and difficult childbirth might coexist within the same country, race or even family and that lifestyle was the determin- ing factor: “Easy childbirth characterizes those living an outdoor life while difficulty is the portion of those living indoors from infancy, confined there by social or educational tyranny.”
In one chapter, Vaughan drew from an ethnography called The Maori to illustrate the tragic transition from easier to more difficult childbirth that she and others such as Dr. Weston A. Price started witnessing in their era. The author of that work (New Zealand ethnographer Elsdon Best) remarked: “Children from 6 to 12 years used to run about naked and their teeth
Vaughan firmly rejected the view of difficult childbirth
as “a matter
of chance,” instead asserting unequivocally that childbirth difficulties resulted from violating “the fundamental laws of health.”
DR. VAUGHAN AND DR. PRICE
Not surprisingly, Dr. Weston A. Price was aware of Dr. Vaughan’s work. In Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, Dr. Price recommended that Safe Childbirth “be made available for reference in the school libraries of the United States.” Discussing the generational changes that were beginning to occur with the transition away from nutrient-dense foods, Dr. Price remarked, “I am informed by gynecologists that narrowing of the pelvic arch is one of the factors that is contributing to the increased difficulties that are encountered in childbirth by our modern generation.” Dr. Price concurred with Dr. Vaughan that “method of life” and nutrition are key determinants of proper structure and function for future parents.
SUMMER 2017
Wise Traditions
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