Fertility and Fertility Control

1. Fertility and Fertility Control By Antoinette Kathol

2. Keep in Mind • Who was in charge of anti-fertility measures in general and contraception? • At what point, or under what circumstances, did women’s and men’s fertility interests diverge? • What is the impact of unmistakable knowledge of the male role in conception? • What is the impact of patriarchy? • When did fertility cease to be an individual or family matter and become a matter for group, eventually state, regulation?

3. Early History • Early history of contraception is woman’s history and therefore unknown • This ignorance is because many anthropologist have been male • Men did not go in market place where they were sold • Men hear what they want to hear • It was kept secret because it could be means for divorce • No contraception before mid-nineteenth century for Western Culture • Male’s withdrawal method • Couples married for awhile performed intercourse less frequently.

4. Male Anthropologist may never ask IF: • They did not win confidence of any females • Abortion is openly performed • See or suspect infanticide • Postpartum sex taboo is long and firmly enforced • Infant and child mortality rates are high • They saw little reason to ask about contraception.

5. Contraception kept Secret • More effective device or agent might be, more concealed women would keep it • Women would reveal the name of contraceptive plant • They would not divulge how to prepare it or use it.

6. Ignorance in Europe and America • Anthropologists discounted reports of herbal contraceptives • They believed if their own medical science had yet to discover it, it did not work

7. Assumptions • Women invented all the basic types of contraception known today • Modern medicine refined or re-invented devices and methods that women knew centuries before

8. Assumptions • Explained: • Hominid infants survival would depend on its mother’s ability to limit births • Men are hostile to contraception • They see women’s methods of preventing or terminating pregnancy as withholding from males their right, as men, to have children • Men want more children than woman do

9. Herbal Contraceptives • Primitive groups • foods or condiments if prepared one way • Contraceptives or abortifacients if prepared another way such as unripe or raw foods • Unripe pineapple is used to interfere with gestation if used in smaller concentrations • Less familiar Contraceptives • Bay laurel • Feverfew • Plantain • Arbor vitae • St. John’s Wart

10. Mythology • Female demons in Jewish legend • Lilith • Blamed for infertility and infant deaths • Lilith - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

11. Horticultural and Pre-horticultural Period • Iroquois (Seneca) • Birth spacing in women’s hands • Women took greatest joy in birth of a daughter • Australian Aboriginal women • Have complete control over reproduction function

12. Primitive Women • Ignorance about women’s role in contraceptive technology • Two Stereotypes • They limit their families by abortion and infanticide • Their lives are a repetitive cycle of childbearing • Most pre-horticultural groups grew very slowly and simply maintain numbers • Most anthropologists found • Every tribe ever studied has wished to limit its fertility, and has used all means at its disposal to do so.

13. Anthropologists Question • Whether they wish to limit fertility has been with us as long as our humanness • Whether it arose at some later time and origin • Did this desire start with the individual woman to limit families or the desire of a while to prevent or correct overpopulation • Woman could only carry one child while on moves • She would not bear another until the 1st could walk miles without help • Start of the agricultural period brought on an explosion in population which then needed to be corrected.

14. Cultural MethodsPostpartum Intercourse Taboos • Make sexual intercourse taboo for mother and father • Period ranged from several weeks, months or even 4 to 5 years after birth • Plains Indians custom • Don’t have second child until the 1st is 10 years old • This taboo kept the group in balance with food supply • Ensured infants received enough protein • Survival factor • This taboo might keep anthropologists from searching other contraceptives.

15. Cultural MethodsBreast-Feeding • Postpartum intercourse taboos have some relation with the need to breast feed • Nursing has a contraceptive effect • Even today, more births are prevented by breast feeding than any other method • Women consciously prolonged it • Baffin Land Eskimo and Native American mothers • Prolonged it to keep families small

16. Cultural MethodsOther Intercourse Taboos/Regulations • Pre or extra marital love-making • Mbuti of Africa – young partners in premarital sex must not embrace fully • Hold each other by the shoulders • Applied by women • Chastity belt  a visible sign of unavailability • Goatskin chastity tunic worn by Libyan girls • If removed, resulted in death of man

17. Cultural MethodsRidicule • Time tested cultural technique to influence behavior • Ghana in 1970s • Women who are easy are ridiculed as being primitive and have no self control • Fiji: feelings of shame if they become pregnant too often

18. Cultural MethodsImposed Barrenness/Celibacy • Certain groups had imposed temporary or permanent celibacy • Nuns, monks, priests in Roman Catholic countries, young men not yet warriors and unmarried girls in Western Societies • Imposed celibacy/barrenness • Demand a stratified society • Consciousness of overpopulation • Imposed on women not to limit their own families

19. Imposed Barrenness/CelibacyAtrahasis Epic • This epic takes place in Babylon • Reason the gods decide to destroy humankind is because of overpopulation • Plagues bring suffering • By 6th year, parents were eating children • Great Flood is for final solution • Atrahasis escapes flood • Gods compromise and allow humans to live but limits their fertility

20. Cultural MethodsPerversions • Difficult to research • Cannot connect them certainly to birth-control motives • Sexual urges satisfied by sexual practices other then heterosexual intercourse • Fertility may be reduced • Such practices: • Anal intercourse, oral intercourse, masturbation, withdrawal and homosexuality

21. Mental/Psychological Methods • Area of contraceptive history almost totally neglected • Modern science began to re-examine allegations • Ancient women had mind or dream control over their fertility

22. Physical/Mechanical Methods • Varied barriers to passage of sperm • Expulsion of sperm from body after intercourse • Douches • Other physical/mechanical anti-fertility methods

23. Physical/Mechanical MethodsBarriers • Barrier methods make little sense until women are aware of the role of seminal fluid in conception • Dahomey women of West Africa – tubercle root pulp as vaginal plug • Bapinda women of Central Africa – used rags and chopped grass • American slave women used sponges to prevent pregnancy

24. Physical/Mechanical MethodsBarriers • Oils, gummy substances • Various thick, oily, or gummy substances used alone with spermicidal • Karo-Bataks of Sumatra – used a small ball of opium into the vagina as a contraceptive

25. Physical/Mechanical MethodsCervical cap; internal sheath • Japanese prostitutes applied disks of oiled paper to the cervix • Casanova recommended using half a lemon as a cervical cap • Prokris’s invention: snipped the bladder of a goat and placed it in the vagina • Djuka women: snipped off on end of an okra see pod and inserted it into the vagina • “vegetable condom”

26. Physical/Mechanical MethodsChastity Belts • Near Eastern Queen Semiramis invented it to keep female courtiers from gaining influence over her son • Cheyenne Indian women used a chastity rope to signify unavailability

27. Physical/Mechanical MethodsDouches • Where water alone was used, it was a physical method • Where a spermicidal or other additive was used • It would be a chemical or herbal method

28. Physical/Mechanical MethodsExpulsion of Sperm • Females are endowed with ejaculatory powers • It would expel the male seed • Spasmic or rhythmic muscular movements used • Kgatta women of Africa used a drug to expel the semen • This technique is looked down upon by birth control experts

29. Physical/Mechanical MethodsDeep Massage: Tipped Uterus • Tipping uterus backward by strong abdominal massage • Conception more difficult if the uterus is tipped far enough • Cervix can rise in vagina until its mouth is covered by opposite vaginal wall • Extremely painful

30. Physical/Mechanical MethodsIntrauterine Devices • Most vexed is the IUD • Invented in 1909 by German doctor Richter • 1950s it was rediscovered • Hippocrates's time, lead tubes filled with mutton fat where being inserted into the cervix and left there • Women passed on own contraceptives • Mother to daughter, midwife to client, wise woman to friend • Japanese women inserted a dry plug of seaweed (Laminaria) into cervix • It expanded as it absorbed moisture • Gradually dilated the cervix and brought on an abortion

31. IUD’s

32. Herbal or Chemical MethodPhysico-Chemical • Douches became chemical when they contained spermicidal ingredients • Rare among primitive women • Not very effective • Douches are difficult to inject solutions into the vagina far enough • Physico-chemical are most effective before modern times • Barrier plus spermicidal was the sea sponge soaked in sperm killing agents • One improvement was the attached string

33. Herbal or Chemical MethodChemical Pessaries • Suppositories or pessaries in which a gummy substance would be inserted into the vagina • Achehnese women of Sumatra use a black mass in the form of a pill • Inserted before coitus

34. Herbal or Chemical MethodOral Contraceptives • Usually herbs or herbal preparations • Using local flowers • In Hippocratic writings, a potion called misy was produced for a year’s sterility • Yao women used plant sap • Shawnee Indian girls drank the juice of a certain herb

35. Herbal or Chemical MethodOral Contraceptives • Inca women grew stenomessum varietum in their gardens as a contraceptive • Intercourse between upper-class and a commoner was a capital offense • Fijian women make a remedy like the “morning after pill” • Peeled roots and bruised leaves of a roqa tree • Many of the contraceptives were poisons

36. Cyclical and Rhythm Methods • Methods relying on a safe period for intercourse • Unsuccessful for modern women • Dr. Evelyn Billing created the Billings Method, 1964 • Works when a woman is fertile each month during the 100 hrs. surrounding ovulation • Cervical mucus changes while fertile period approaches • When used correctly, 98.5% effective • Some women ovulate more than once a month

37. Cyclical and Rhythm Methods • Gerald and Selmaree Oster developed Body Aware System • Oster’s test • A sheet of paper dipped into urine or saliva changes color in response to high estrogen levels

38. Surgical Methods • Ovarotomy for contraception • Women who have had it have a mark or scar on the side above the hip • Western observers assumed they removed the ovaries • Earliest surgery in many cultures

39. 19th CenturyPessaries • Emeline Bringham (1867) • Patented and improved pessary • It’s an intrauterine or intravaginal device

40. 19th CenturyVaginal syringes: contraceptive douching • Anna Palmer (1879) – patented concealed uterine cauterizes and vaginal syringes • Laura Adams of NY (1881) – patented a vaginal syringe • Elizabeth Holcombe of NY (1881) – patented a vaginal irrigator or urinal • Bidet-like device for post-coital douches

41. 19th CenturyCervical Cap • Unnamed German midwife place, after delivery, a foreign body in front of the cervix • It was actually invented a thousand years ago but rediscovered

42. 19th CenturyDiaphragm • Dr. Aletta Jacobs helped develop the vulcanized rubber diaphragm • Greatest advance in birth control since the condom • Two advantages • Approved by doctors • Once prescribed under the control of women

43. 19th CenturyPerennial Sponge • Annie Besant (1870s) • Soaked a sponge in quinine solution and inserted into the vagina before intercourse

44. 20th Century Pioneers • Margaret Sanger – coined the term birth control • Founded the 1st doctor staffed birth control clinic in U.S. • Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau in NY • Developed inexpensive contraceptive jelly • Marie Carmichael Stopes – educated women about sex, conception and contraception • Found England’s 1st birth control clinic

45. 20th CenturyRational Methods • Hannah Stone (1930s) – combined diaphragm with spermicidal jellies • Diaphragm comes loose during intercourse • Dr. Connie Chambers Harris – found that the dosage in Birth control is too strong • The pill has lower dosages of hormones now • Marjorie Murray (1974) – invented and patented a pillbox with timer and buzzer • Personal Pill Reminder

46. 20th CenturyMale Contraception • Dr. Martha Voegli – devised a technique for men • 3 weeks of daily 45 minute baths in 116°F water • Make men sterile for 6 months • Barbara Seaman (1978) – suggested condoms to be made in small, medium and large • Labeled Jumbo, Colossal, and Supercolossal to ease the males ego

47. ???Questions???