Childbirth was traditionally a woman’s world that brought female relatives, friends, and the midwife to the laboring woman’s bedside, as shown in this Dutch painting from the late seventeenth century.
(The Newborn Baby, 1675, by Matthys Naiveu [1647–1726], [oil on canvas]/Image copyright © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York, USA/Image source: Art Resource, NY)