Monstrous births--and how to avoid them.

©FFPRHC J Fam Plann Reprod Health Care 2007: 33(3) Monstrous births History holds many references to ‘monstrous births’ as such a dramatic event would certainly be worth recording as extraordinary – a matter for personal letters, Church papers or even Court proceedings. The appearance of such a child was not always viewed with suspicion and fear but sometimes as a living message from God or, in ancient times, from a variety of gods. With people generally living in very much smaller groups, the child would be the source of considerable interest. Crucially the mind and imagination were thought to play a major part in how the child would look and behave after birth. Scholars might argue that our ancestors didn’t view the mind as we do but that it was the spirit of the person that played its part. I would also be inclined to that view. The Queen of Ethiopia, it is said, was delivered of a white child because when she lay with the King she “thought about a marvellous white thing”. History doesn’t tell us what the “white thing” was but it certainly had an impact on the Queen of Ethiopia and presumably on her husband too! Women claimed to be astounded at the sight of their new child having the features of the man they desired rather than their husband. Obviously, behind closed lids at the moment of conception they had accidentally thought of another man. This could be all jolly useful for adulterers or the lusty. There were other impactful desires: an urge for red wine in an expectant mother and the child might have ‘wine stains’ on the skin. A fragile woman “feared at the sight of a blackamoor” brought forth a black child. However, a black child born of a white mother and vice versa was not considered a monstrous birth but a remarkable event and an outward and visible sign of the power of imagination.