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My grandmother gave birth to my mom, aunt, & uncle while being in her words "knocked out cold" and she apparently loved it. She said, "Who would want to be awake, for something like that? I went to sleep, and when I woke up, they handed me my baby all clean and wrapped in a blanket."

Okay, so if I understand this right: it was initially a good method for the time, if done correctly and scientifically accurate. But then it was hyped so hard, the new "experts" didn't have the time to care about the patients and were sloppy, so they ruined it for everyone.

Don't worry, women don't actually care if you have a full head of hair. We care if you treat us right.

imagine trying to counter argue your mum's statement of "I don't remember giving birth to a disappointment" but she suddenly pulls out her medicals records of Twilight Sleep.

My grandmother gave birth to my dad under Twilight Sleep. She said she literally can't remember giving birth to him. She said, "I went to the hospital and came home with a baby. I don't remember how it happened."

This puts the trope of babies being switched at birth or stolen and replaced with a monster in perspective.

While giving birth to me, my mother was anesthetized to "twilight sleep" to the point where she passed out and couldn't push. I was dragged out of her with the use of forceps slightly above my temples. It squished my skull so well that there is no new born picture of me. That was 1959. I still have scars inside my hairline that every hairdresser ever has commented on. So my first head injury happened during birth.

Honestly, sounds like the issue was less the procedure as opposed to the procedure being not done right

german doctor: lets make this right to help ze patient american doctor: money money

Hubby and I were fooling around for a decade without preventative measures. We thought somebody's plumbing was out of whack, since nothing happened. In 2003, we started looking into adopting, I got knocked up. I started making delivery plans by the third visit to the OB/GYN, and a major component was ALL THE DRUGS. Why should I suffer needless pain when there are proven methods, procedures, and pharmaceuticals to help me safely through the delivery of my child? What's the use of having access to modern technology? I never saw the needle that went into my spin for the epidural (I'm deathly afraid of needles, but I'm more scared of inescapable pain), but delivering my son, once hard labor started, took about an hour. At 8:08pm, my boy was existing in his own right, and he's a big ol' goofball today. "Natural" delivery is fine if one wants it. As long as everyone directly involved is on board with it, great. But if the pregnant one can safely access non-Stone Age methods of delivery, and wishes to utilize them, no one else has any call to deride their choices.

When I was on placement as a midwifery student, we were at a home visit where we explain possible complications that can happen during birth and what interventions would be done in such cases. In the event that one of these complications did occur, the client would have an idea of what was happening. While we were talking, our client’s grandmother who had been listening in from the corner of the room, started to cry. She told us about how thankful she was that we were explaining everything to her granddaughter, and how she wished she could have given birth differently. She talked about being sedated, strapped down to a bed, with no explanations of what was happening to her. I’m familiar with more recent cases of obstetrical violence, but I had no idea the extent of it in the fairly recent past.

"Some lady, long long ago, ate an apple so we shouldn't administer medicines to help." -Doctor Asshat, 1862

My grandmother had 8 kids, some at home. One story was her 3rd, with a 1 year old, & a 7 year old. She had to care for the cow, chickens, husband, the housework, all meals, etc. Her husband wasn't helpful. He wouldn't come home to take her to the hospital, so she had it at home alone, & got back to work. She called the doctor, & asked him to come by the next day to give her stitches. She's always been my woman hero.

The over-shoulder graphic for deadly nightshade is actually bittersweet nightshade. It’s a common mix up and even the show Penny Dreadful did it. Bittersweet nightshade looks more showy with its vibrant purple open flowers and exotic looking green spots so Hollywood likes to make the switch for prettier visuals. It’s also way more common. I have some growing in my yard as a weed right now. It grows bright red oval berries in the summer. Deadly nightshade by comparison is pickier with its growing conditions and has a closed bell-shaped flower. It’s purple color is more muted and it’s overall more unassuming. But it’s round black glossy berries are gorgeous. So yeah. Deadly nightshade has a ‘prettier’ cousin with a face for the screen that steals the spotlight but hasn’t done the crimes they have.

I’m currently in labour. This probably wasn’t the best video to watch.

I can't help but be reminded of the birth scene in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life. Mother: What do you want ME to do? Doctor: Nothing dear; you're NOT QUALIFIED!

So they took something to ease the process that required fine tuning to each individual case and basically industrialised it...

Preferring post partum depression with twilight sleep over regular childbirth says a lot about the amount if pain involved

My mother had twilight sleep with all of us. I had to do natural birth. Thank goodness I had my first one in the hospital because the on-call doctor was an idiot. My own doctor had left that morning on vacation. The on-call refused to follow our birth plan. My OB knew there would be difficulties. My daughter was too large and was a posterior presentation, head down but facing the abdomen. Babies are supposed to be face down. I was in labor for 33 hour with 3 of non-stop pushing. My mother had to throw a massive fit because I was passing out between contractions and the idiot was going to use forceps. Emergency c section. My daughter was blue as a smurf and not breathing. Her shoulders were wedged in my pelvis so tightly that they did a massive amount of damage to me getting her out. My other children had to be c sections as well but those were a cake walk compared to being forced to try to push a square peg through a round hole. Forceps would have severely damaged her. We filed a complaint, as did my real OB but I don’t know if anything came of it.

Never given birth, but given how bad just my "normal" periods are I would absolutely be all in for skipping that pain. Sure, we know NOW that the drugs were bad, but this is from the same era where cigarettes lowering birth weight was considered a good thing and cocaine and chloroform in not-even-OTC cold remedies was normal. I get why the OG feminists were like FUCK YEAH.

As with any other condition, the doctors and nurses stopped seeing patients as people. Humanity may not be precisely scientific, but you cannot entirely discard that from the equation.

Can you do a video about how doctors used to believe that infants couldn’t feel pain and instead of using general anesthesia they used something that paralyzed them but didn’t put them to sleep until sometime in the early 80’s?

I gave birth one time, in 1978, without any type of medication. Not my idea, I assure you. I always swore that if I ever did it again I would have “drugs”. Apparently the trauma never faded because I never wanted to go through that again. And in case you’re interested my child and I were then and still are very close.

So as usual, americans got their hands on a good invention, skipped out on quality and made it as cheap and low-quality as they possibly could, then were like "This doesn't work" and probably felt smug about how much better their american way was compared to this "horrible european thing", when in fact they were the problem. Yeah that sounds about right.

As if we needed more proof of the extent to which Alabama lags, particularly in medicine, this is exactly how I was delivered in Dothan, AL, in 1975.

Having given birth unmedicated twice (once in a hospital, once at home), I can say that the fear of pain is so much worse than the pain itself. Yes, it is difficult, but when a woman is given agency in her birthing process and has a team who supports her, she can do a miraculous thing with grace, dignity, and beauty.

It's interesting that I am seeing this while pregnant with my fourth child. When I was pregnant with my first, nearly eighteen years ago, the women in my family told me a lot about their experiences with Twilight sleep in the 50s and 60s. I had an aunt who's son live for only four hours after he was born but she was knocked out and missed the only chance she had to ever know him out he was alive. Gynecology used to be a cruel cruel thing.

My grandmother gave birth to all 5 of her kids via twilight sleep (this was the late 40's through late 50's). When I started having children she told me I was crazy to be awake for it 🤣. Also, random note, in the original Father of the Bride movie the lead wanted to have her child awake and it was considered controversial.

My mother used to tell me how she was asleep while giving birth to me and woke up frustrated that I still was not born (I was already 3 weeks overdue). I found it hard to believe her until I much later read about twilight sleep. I was a forceps baby - born in 1956. Thank you for this enlightening video!

'Fun medical fact' Versed is an amnesiac drug routinely used during surgery. It causes mild relaxation but pretty much guarantees a lucid blackout, causing the patient to basically have no memory. My mother worked as a nurse in an experimental treatment study for pain control after bunion surgery. Before surgery, patients "were rendered unconscious in their rooms" before being wheeled into surgery. Everyone basically said the same thing: surgery was a breeze and they slept the entire time. This wasn't really true. First patients were given versed and a muscle relaxant, calming their nerves but keeping them coherent enough to answer questions and actually move from their bed into a wheeled gurney. She remembers patients often falling out of bed because they jumped up and didn't realize their legs were Jello, crying out in pain because of a snubbed bunion. After surgery, which was not full anesthesia but more akin to a wisdom tooth extraction with nitrous oxide, those same patients would say "oh, I thought surgery was going to be worse!" and how they "just fell asleep and they did the surgery in the room", remembering nothing of the 45 minutes affair from bed to surgical hall where they were being asked various medical questions. If you have ever had surgery with general anesthesia and just remember "getting the drug, falling asleep and waking up", that is almost certainly not what happened. You were breathing on your own, semi-conscious, as they removed the catheter from your throat and urethra.

As someone who has given birth in the hospital and at home, I am incredibly grateful this is not still a thing. There’s a lot of pressure to give birth this way or that way, but nobody’s suggesting hypnotics anymore and that’s progress at least.

Once there was a couple who were about to give birth to their child. The wife was nervous because she feared that she would not be able to handle the pain. Fortunately the doctor told her that there was a new machine that could transfer the pain from the mother to the father. Unfortunately, because men where not used to the pain, there was a risk that the shock might kill him. Both the man and woman agreed that it was worth the risk. The doctor decided to ease the man into it by starting on the lowest setting. He feels nothing. As the birthing process continued the doctor continued to turn the machine up higher and higher but the man still felt nothing. By the end neither one could feel any pain. The man is so happy about his child that he calls his mother. When his mother answered she congratulated him but told him that something strange had happened. The mailman had been found dead on their front lawn.

I could see this “twilight sleep” birthing method, still having a bit of practicality in modern times specifically for use, willingly and congenitally of “surrogate mothers’; those women whom are intentionally carrying a baby for someone else, as this method of delivery would help intentionally decrease an emotional bond with the infant.. something i believe is still a fairly common negative side-effect of such a practice. This of course, would HAVE TO BE a much refined variant of those original doses of med’s &/or, type of med’s altogether, so as to minimize any or all health risks to the birthing woman & baby

I’m an Ob and find medical history fascinating. We handed over pain management to the Anaesthetists back in the 90s and have many options for those women who want it.

My mother referred to this as the "knock em out, drag em out" era of childbirth. She had me too late for that era and arrived at the hospital too far along for an epidural, so there was a touch of bitterness on the topic...

According to my mom, I was born this way. Not only did it wipe out her memory of me being born, but she couldn't remember the day leading up to, or the day after, either. She said what she did remember was like a nightmare, where she kept being awakened into chaos, where people were yelling at her to push, and then she would black out again, and it would start over.. As a little kid, I felt terrible that I put my mom through such an ordeal. I'm glad to hear that they no longer force women to endure this. 19th century scientists were really out of touch with humanity.

This happened to my Nana. Obviously she said it was terrifying. She said they never told her what they were giving her beforehand, and she woke up to them handing her a baby. It was horrible, and very hard to feel Connected.

Not for childbirth, but I had twilight sleep used for dental surgery several years ago. I found it to be very disturbing. I lost not one day but three days of memories, he overdosed me. Also, you have no way of knowing what is happening to you while you are under the influence of these medications. I refused it for further procedures even though it meant having to go through far more recovery time.

During my first childbirth, I had pushed for 2 hours to no avail. My daughter was sunny side up and would not descend. I ended up in emergency C-section, and at first they didn't use enough medication or give it enough time, and I could feel when they were cutting me. I told them to wait a little longer, and then they gave me gas. I was knocked out immediately. I remember waking up to them saying you have a daughter. I replied in a very hazy voice I can't have a daughter I didn't give birth! I fell back asleep and didn't fully wake up for 4 hours. The nurse had tried to get her to breastfeed while I was out of it knowing that's what my wishes were. I'm groggily sang to her and fell back asleep. When I fully awoke, I was so upset that she wasn't in the room with me. I told my husband to get her in the room right away. I had such a hard time believing that she was mine. She didn't look anything like me! I knew that I had given birth because I had been in labor for about 8 hours feeling all the pain. I truly can't imagine how these women felt not remembering all the work their body had gone through. This was very interesting, thank you for sharing this history.

I’m one of those children delivered in the 1960’s where my mom was sedated with twilight sleep. She had always lauded it as a miracle drug until she found out that during the process of birth, it is entirely possible she may have said and done things (or done to her?) she doesn’t remember. She was horrified to learn the true details of twilight sleep about 25 years ago. What scares me most is that my mother lived in a time where the doctor felt no compulsion to tell her what exactly happened during twilight sleep. She literally went to sleep and woke with a baby. That is all she knew for decades! Patient rights were obviously not that big a deal back then. 🤷🏼‍♀️ thankful my daughter’s delivery in 1990 was mostly drug free and this method was no longer on the cards.

I was born in 1970 and they gave my mom twilight sleep. She didn't remember the birth, except for a few flashes and she said that I was groggy for days after I was born. I'm glad I had all of mine naturally.

My mother’s mother gave birth to her first 5 babies at home with a neighbor to help. She was 17-18 when her first was born. My mother and two of her siblings were born in hospital, but I don’t know that she would’ve had TS. My grandad was a second-generation American, fiercely loyal to his adopted country and skeptical of things German, despite being of German descent.

Simon, if ever anyone could make the best of hair loss, it's you. Nobody would think it wasn't deliberate. You look amazing!

My grandmother delivered 5 babies in twilight sleep. My mom said that my grandmother woke up a little bit while delivering her, but other than that she was out cold. I couldn't imagine going through that. I gave birth 7 weeks ago with no pain medication or anything and watched my son be delivered through a mirror that my nurse set up. It was a wonderful experience. Hurt like heck but I thoroughly enjoyed being "present" for the entire birth process. Being put to sleep then waking up without my baby would be very traumatic for me - I didn't even have the nurses take my baby to the nursery during the night when I was sleeping, he HAD to stay in the room with me at all times.

My sister had the “twilight sleep” when she had one of her boys, she said that she didn’t remember anything about the delivery but had horrible nightmares for years and years afterwards!!

I was born in 1956 in Phoenix, Arizona. My mother often spoke of my birth as being a beautiful experience. It was the only one of several that she was actually awake for. The doctor laid me on my mother's abdomen as he cut the cord and she reached down to stroke me and revel the miracle of my birth. Then I was whisked away for blood tests, etc. As my mother had AB negative blood and I was her second baby. But one thing she always talked about was that I was born with Twilight Sleep and that was why it was so beautiful an experience. Now I know what that magic was. I've always wondered what it was as it had such a fairytale image in her telling of the story.

I would love to hear more about the history of dentistry. As a dental hygienist, it fascinates me. Thanks so much for all the hard work you do, along with your team. ❤️

After undergoing an abortion under twilight sleep, I had nightmares for months that the procedure didn't actually happen. I distinctly remember watching the lights overhead wheel by as I'm being wheeled out of the anesthesia prep room, then it was like I blinked and suddenly I am in a totally different bed, in a different room, with a nurse just telling me to breathe and stay calm. I was shocked because it felt like I just teleported or something and I didn't feel any different. I remember a dull ache feeling, but it was so minor and I internally felt no difference, so I was paranoid for a long time afterwards that I was still pregnant. This happened 11 years ago and I am just now learning that my paranoia and fear over the event potentially not happening was not just me being insane.

Like many others commenting here my maternal grandmother had twilight births for the first 4 of her 5 total births. She described it as lovely besides the fact that you "woke up to a screaming, shitting, needy little creature that you had to take care of". She had no bond with her first 4 children. She thought this was normal. She thought all mothers cared for their children out of familial obligation and for no other reason. She was cruel and abusive to her first 4 children. With no bond to bring them together they were not much more than an emotional, physical and financial drain on her. It wasn't until she had her last baby later in life that she gave birth awake. She said that the birth was painful but only took about 3 hours from first contraction to baby in her arms. And when they placed my aunt in her arms she was instantly in love and felt that "magical connection" she thought other mothers only lied about. My grandmother never made the connection until she witnessed a similar happening with my mother. My mother birthed me "naturally" and my twin siblings by c-section while completely under anesthesia. My mother, like her mother before her, had no connection to her babies. It made for an interesting childhood to say the least. I wrote a whole essay on the story. It caused 2 generations of trauma. I'm only now breaking the cycle and trying my damnedest to do better by my own children. Despite the damage done to me I work tirelessly everyday to do better for my kids.

One of my moms relatives had her labour through twilight sleep. She was pregnant with twins. While she was sleeping and after she’d given birth the doctors took one of the babies and sold her on the black market. When she’d woken up she’d asked about the second baby and the doctors told her she was delusional, that there’d only been one. Years later the twins actually found each other and the who of the tragedy was revealed.

My mom was under the influence of twilight while giving birth to me. Very educational! Thank you.

I have a solution: I’m not having kids :)

Whenever I got pregnant in my younger years, I was offered epidurals and saddle blocks. I refused them because I didn't want my kids to be born with those kinds of drugs in their systems. I was offered morphine, too. Same thing: I thought a hard sedative like that would cause my baby to be born lethargic or unresponsive. I was afraid of how painful labor would be, though. They offered me a Nubain and said it would 'just take the edge off', and would not affect the baby. I said okay to that. It was perfect: I remained awake and alert, while feeling a bit fuzzy. It still hurt like hell. But it was just enough without being too much. A nurse asked me once if I thought my delivery was satisfying. Weird question, and yes, it always was. I think that is important, somehow.

My mother had a twilight birth and had twins, she had no idea she was even having twins...let alone a girl and a boy SURPRISE!

I’m left wondering if twilight sleep had any long term effects on the babies. I would Google it but the daunting task of weeding through the garbage content, which Google loves to share first, to get to the rare nugget of truth is something I don’t have time for...

Even the normal Birth actually comes with a natural memory wipe, though it's not as efficient as drugs - it's due to the huge surge of oxytocin, a chemical that is also involved in trust and social bonding, that causes you to remember the moment right after (when you get to see the baby) but the memory of the pain before that is diminished. I guess if nature didn't fool us this way, no one would have siblings - especially not in the past when childbirth was much more dangerous. My mom had 5 babies but after the first 4 times she had zero memory of what the placenta had looked like. With baby #5 she was already 40 so she knew this would be the last kid, so she asked the Drs to save it so she could see what it looks like.

I gave birth to my son in 1977, I had just turned 18, and struggled with the extreme pain of labor pains as my frame was very small. The doctor wanted to do a c-section, but my mother didn’t want me to have such a horrible scar at such a young age so they gave me a shot called Twilight Shot.” I only remember coming to every now and then and only for a few seconds, but I definitely don’t remember any pain whatsoever and came to a few hours after childbirth. It was an experience and am glad I didn’t feel the pain any longer. My son was born healthy and strong. I never knew what the name of the actual shot was called other than Twilight Shot.

Whoa, today I actually DID find out something new! TBH most of the topics on this channel I already have at least heard about if not already familiar with them, but this one is completely new to me and an extremely interesting topic as well. GJ!

My first baby I was unconscious for. I remember waking up and seeing my husband walk into the room carrying him. My first thought were, that's not my baby, whose baby is that? Then I noticed he had my husband's nose and thought, oh maybe it's mine. The brain does things.

My grandmother used twilight and she loved it. When talking about my birthday (which was awful and I never heard t end of) she would say back in her day how wonderful it was. *shoulder shrugs*

This is how my grandmother gave birth in the 1950s! Also this is sort of chronicled on “Mad Men” when Betty gives birth to Eugene.

Wow, definitely scary! My great grandma on my mother's side was a midwife. She assisted my grandma on my dad's side with the births of my two aunts and my father in the 1920's, no drugs involved. I was born in a hospital in the 1960's and they gave my mom demoral for the pain, and it crossed the placenta barrier, so I spent the first month of my life asleep, waking up just enough to eat... Fast forward 20 years, and we come full circle. I had my babies at home with a midwife and no drugs involved.

Even expecting one, the very idea of waking up still drugged and delirious from a medical procedure only to have a nurse hand me a newborn baby that is apparently mine sounds utterly horrifying. No wonder this procedure died out.

Remember Ladies. Having cats is much much easier. But does tend to come with certain names. But on the other hand they stay small, warm & cuddly forever. Unless you piss them off anyway. I still absolutely adore my nieces & nephews though. Even though they're no longer small cuddly little things. My mom & I were always the favored babysitters. Especially on New Years Eve when my sister's friends would also leave their kids too. Man we had tons of fun.

No offense, I thought it was already terrifying as it is on its own. *Then they just made it worse*

I was born in WI in 1978. I was delivered with forceps after my mother was given something at least similar to twilight sleep. I had a hernia that required surgery - without anesthesia! - as a result of the forceps. My mother has always been pathological in her distance from me, emotional & physical ('literally, she left when I was 14) but raised her next 2 children, born 12 years later under modern conditions, in a more stable, loving environment. After watching this I wonder if that initial experience of being disconnected from the birthing process is at least partially responsible.

My mom gave birth to my oldest brother while under the influence of scopolamine, it was such an awful experience it made her refuse any pain meds during any of her following births.

Because I had a “bad epidural” my labor was actually more agonizing than it would have been without one. I felt every contraction, but in between each, I had a “see-saw” effect where all the pain in of my contraction quickly moved from my abdomen to my shoulders. I had pain radiating across my shoulders so bad that I begged them to remove the epidural, but they would not. I wish so desperately that I would have experienced the entire thing, without interference. I can’t imagine how women who endured all of these practices must feel!

They put the twilight zone soundtrack and the baby talks with a deep voice after being born

Scopolamine was apparently used in wartime for motion sickness or something. My grandmother recalled gathering henbane, a nightshade family plant during wartime, as the government wanted that done. The stuff grows in abundance in Southwest Wyoming where we lived.

I'm currently in early labor. Thanks for the pep talk, Simon.

This was a really excellent video. Thank you Simon, I really enjoyed this

I was sedated for my first, and wished I was for my second. Absolutely no reason to be conscious.

I've been doing some family search. I'm always interested in the death certificates, when they are available. At least 3 babies died of "birth injuries" with inter cranial hemorrhage, most likely from a forceps delivery. Looking into the past this way, you see children dying of "intestinal complaints" , where some coroners are more specific, putting cholera or dysentery in as cause. The worst was the obituary of a 3-year-old boy playing on a sand heap with other children. A dump truck with a load of sand was backing into the yard, the child tried to climb onto the right side of the truck, slipped off, went under the turning truck, and his head was crushed by the tire. A man standing nearby took the mother and child to hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Very interesting. Thanks Simon !

Thank you Simon for this video. I haven't gotten your videos lately glad this one came up

I had an epidural done for my c section and wound up having an adverse reaction to the epidural that lasted 3 miserable long weeks! It was 100X worse than the labor pains/contractions. 😬

Keeps looks interesting ......but I was sure that the cure for baldness in men was to shave the scalp clean and grow facial hair. It's a magnificent hairstyle on my husband and it works well on Simon too.

The whole video deserved a thumbs up. But the intro about 'Keeps'. THAT intro alone totally deserved a thumbs up. Thank you, Simon.

I only meant to watch one video whilst doing laundry. I’m hooked!!

He didnt even mention that some of those women would get ptsd and flashbacks from those memories. Sounds very unpleasent, the past truly was the worst.

Riddle me this, fact boy: where did the idea of the "Nigerian prince who wants to send you money" come from and why has it become the go-to example of email scams?

Damn. I love this channel so much. So many crazy and wildly interesting historical events I would never have known about without it. Keep it up guys and gals. Y’all r doin us all a massive favor with all this historical knowledge.

I had a pretty horrific childbirth with my second child. A little background. I was scheduled to have a c section because my previous child had been born that way. The hospital I chose was wonderful the first time around. It was a very small hospital with one obgyn and I had been the one and only patient the entirety of my stay the last time I had been there. The nurses were literally bored and would make my husband and milkshakes every night. I loved it. But with my son I went into labor a a few weeks early and my labor was extremely quick. I arrived at like 1:30 a.m. and the doctor had gone home for the night😳 So I waited a total of 90 minutes for her to arrive. In the meantime, I was coming along very quickly and the nurses were NOT the same ones I had had the last time. Not even close. These nurses where very rude and condescending. They seemed annoyed that I was in labor. They kept yelling at me to stop pushing. I wasn't pushing my body was literally contracting the baby out all on it's own in between contractions they said things like "Why did you wait so long? Isn't this your second child? So how did you not realize you were having contractions? Look I'm going to need for you to chill or your baby's going to come out before the doctor gets here." They gave me an IV but never offered anything to even take the edge off for pain the whole time and I was too delirious to ask I guess. Finally, when my doctor walked in I just remember her saying " I don't like that look in your eye!" And laughing (I think she meant that she thought I was trying to push.) Then she checked me and said "omg..😳...Well he's got a full head off hair Mama! Teeheehee" Then she gestured to one of the nurses and that was all I remember. Apparently that gesture meant it was time to knock me out cold because the next thing I remember i was waking up in excruciating pain all by myself with no idea what happened. Turns out even though I was 10 cm dilated and my son was down far enough that she could feel his hair and rather than allow me to push she knocked me out cold and did a c section. It was traumatic as all hell...I guess I can be glad I wasn't tripping on deadly nightshade though, lol.

My mother gave birth to my oldest brother via Twilight Sleep. He is 55 years old. Crazy to hear about other people's experiences with this too.

I LOVE this idea! As a mother who endured 4 difficult, complicated and very painful births, why is suffer through immense pain and fear considered a mark of courage and ' WOMANHOOD'? Why are we being socially conditioned to believe that it is weak, un-womanly and irresponsible to not actively want to endure the most pain possible. Why is our love of our babies and our social/moral value dependant on the amount of suffering we endure?? Ok, rant over.

I was born that way! My poor mom was waking up and she heard a baby crying. She said, "Oh, did someone have a baby?" She said that she had to go through the difficult labor without pain relief, and then was put asleep at the best part, the delivery. It amazes me that they didn't take into consideration the drug's affect on the baby. These were also the same doctors who did not encourage her to nurse me. I have crohn's disease, and I can't help but think that the lifeless canned milk and corn syrup she fed me had much to do with my digestive issues. Mama's raw milk had enzymes and vitamins, so essential for a baby's growth. I had my first 4 babies with the help of demeral, to ease pain. But my forth was groggy from the drug, and after that my last 4 were born naturally. My last was at home with a midwife, going full circle back to the basics. Thank you for your excellent research.

Very interesting! I subscribed. Thank you.

When I learned about this (happened to my grandmother for all three kids) it made the scene in Rosemary’s Baby make sense where she sleepily says she’s not even in control when giving birth. It makes sense when that book is all about women not being in control of their body, especially not when pregnant, in the 60’s

'History is always the worst ' -Simon

_Really good video had no idea this used to be a practice_

My great grandmother was born in May 1914! It’s crazy how much things have changed

Good video 👍

Scopolamine is a very VERY scary thing. Also know as "Devils Breath". The worst part of the drug is that when someone is under the influence of the drug, you can ask them to do ANYTHING, and they will do it and have no memory of it. You could literally ask someone to take all the money they have in the bank and give it to you and they happily would do it. You could distroy someones life in a single night, and people do it all the time. There are countless stories of people visiting south America where the tree that produces the drug grow legally (it is illegal to harvest the trees but people do it anyways), and suddenly waking up with nothing to their name. No money, no car, no passport. Nothing.

My mother was totally out of it when she gave birth, but then she had a really gnarly c-section x) I just found your channel, love your way of explaining things ! :)))

Lol, America administered the technique in a very American way 😂 😞

I'm wondering about the disregard in respect to scopolamine being an alkaloid that easily could be harmful to a neonate. Even if it is safe there should have been mention of the carelessness to use it without actually knowing what it would do. Also, the amnesia part is troubling. The mother in theory could be deceived and given a different baby, whether intentionally or accidently. I also could just be over thinking it but seems like these ideas are worth regard.

There was an episode of Mad Men where Betty gave birth via Twilight Sleep. It was kind of horrifying.

Very interesting video thanks.