BIRTH. In Eastern countries child-birth is usually attended with much less pain and difficulty than in our northern regions ; although Oriental females are not to be regarded as exempt from the common doom of woman, `in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children' (Gen. iii. 16). It is however uncertain whether the difference arises from the effect of climate or from the circumstances attend ing advanced civilization ; perhaps both causes ope rate, to a certain degree, in producing the effect. Climate must have some effect ; but it is observed that the difficulty of child-birth, under any climate, increases with the advance of civilization, and that in any climate the class on which the advanced condition of society most operates finds the pangs of child-birth the most severe. Such consideration may probably account for the fact that the Hebrew women, after they had long been under the influ ence of the Egyptian climate, passed through the child-birth pangs with much more facility than the women of Egypt, whose habits of life were more refined and self-indulgent (Exod. i. 19). There were, however, already recognised Hebrew mid wives while the Israelites were in Egypt ; and their office appears to have originated in the habit of calling in some matron of experience in such matters to assist in cases of difficulty. A remark able circumstance in the transaction which has afforded these illustrations (Exod. i. 16) has been explained under ABNA1M.
The child was no sooner born than it was washed in a bath and rubbed with salt (Ezek. xvi. 4) ; it was then tightly swathed or bandaged to prevent those distortions to which the tender frame of an infant is so much exposed during the first days of life (Job xxxviii. 9 ; Ezek. xvi. 4 ; Luke ii. 7, i r). This custom of bandaging or swathing the new born infant is general in Eastern countries. It was
also a matter of much attention with the Greeks and Romans (see the citations in Wetstein, at Luke ii. 7), and even in our own country was not aban doned till the last century, when the repeated re monstrances of the physicians seem to have led to its discontinuance.
It was the custom at a very ancient period for the father, while music celebrated the event, to take the new-born child upon his knees, and by this cere mony he was understood to declare it to be his own (Gen. 1. 23 ; Job iii. I2 ; cf. Ps. xxii. ro). This practice was imitated by those wives who adopted the children of their handmaids (Gen. xvi. 2 ; xxx. 3-5). The messenger who brought to the father the first news that a son was born unto him was received with pleasure and rewarded with presents ( Job iii. 3; Jer. xx. Ts), as is still the custom in Persia and other Eastern countries. The birth of a daughter was less noticed, the disappointment at its not being a son, subduing for the time the satis faction which the birth of any child naturally occa sions.
Among the Israelites, the mother, after the birth of a son, continued unclean seven days ; and she remained at home during the thirty-three days succeeding the seven of uncleanness, forming alto gether forty days of seclusion. After the birth of a (laughter the number of the days of uncleanness and seclusion at home was doubled. At the expiration of this period she went into the tabernacle or temple, and presented a yearling lamb, or, if she was poor, two turtle doves and two young pigeons, as a sacrifice of purification (Lev. xii. 1-8 ; Luke ii. 22). [CHILDREN.]—J. K.