Birth

Magic belt for childbirth

The magic belt was used to relieve labour pain at a time when medical pain relief or other health services were not yet available. The belt was tied around the belly of the woman in labour. The aids hidden in the belt were small magical objects, such as a five-kopek coin, bone and piece of umbilical cord. The bone is probably the claw of an animal. The coin was in a small fabric bag. The belt comes from the village of Pisto in East Karelia.

SU5004:1a-e. Photo: Matti Huuhka, 2010.

Maternity package for an undocumented mother

Second-hand baby clothes, toys and new care supplies. These packages are distributed at the Global Clinic to pregnant women who are undocumented, i.e. living in Finland without a legal residence permit. Run by volunteers, the clinic provides help for non-urgent health problems and health advice. In the Helsinki Metropolitan Area, for example, pregnant undocumented women receive maternity and child health clinic services but are not entitled to Kela’s official maternity packages. Therefore, volunteers assemble these unofficial maternity packages in order to help them in the first months with the baby. This maternity package is from 2019.

IT108. Photo: Ilari Järvinen, 2020.

Baptism dress decorated with silk lace

A hooded baby outfit became commonly used as a robe-like baptism gown in the 18th century. Among ordinary people, the so-called christening bag was used well into the 19th century. A long white baptism dress was generally adopted by the gentry with the rise of neoclassical fashion in the 19th century, and then adopted more widely only at the turn of the 20th century. The straight, diamond-patterned piqué dress belonged to Gerda Åberg, born in Porvoo in 1867. The interior of the fabric is fluffy like flannel. The only decoration used is a wide band of silk lace.

H50004:1. Photo: Timo Ahola, 2020.

Glass bowl as a baptismal font

Many children were born in Finland after the Winter War and Continuation War. The generations who fought the war rebuilt Finland and sought their place in society. This glass bowl was used as a baptismal font in Somero in 1955. The family moved from Pieksämäki to Somero and then on to Hämeenlinna. The father was an electrical engineer, and the mother worked as a head clerk before they got married.

K11987:49. Photo: Ilari Järvinen 2016.

Churching stool from Pudasjärvi

When a woman had given birth to a child, the pastor blessed, or churched, the woman at the child’s christening. During the blessing, the woman kneeled on the churching stool. Before the churching, the new mother had to keep away from other people for six weeks. The churching rituals varied depending on the status of the woman. If a woman gave birth to an illegitimate child, the churching included, among other things, public reprimand. Pregnancy and childbirth were commonly associated with feelings of shame and beliefs about the uncleanness of a woman who gave birth. In general, churching was considered to be some sort of purification rite, in which the mother was readmitted into the church. The church wanted to address this belief in 1868, and the law was amended such that churching meant a prayer to thank the mother who had given birth. After that, the law no longer referred to readmission into the church.

The practice of churching a woman who had given birth was common in Finland since the Middle Ages. The custom dates back to the Old Testament and became a Christian custom as a result of the Virgin Mary’s visit to the temple as recounted in the Bible. Churching was compulsory from 1686 to 1963. However, attitudes towards it varied in different parts of Finland. The attitudes varied depending on social status. Among ordinary people, churching was taken seriously, but the nobility, for example, shunned the practice. During the 19th century, the clergy also gradually started to turn against the tradition and, in the 1930s, churching ceased altogether even in the last parishes that had still continued it. The practice of churching gradually stopped as medicine developed and knowledge of childbirth increased. Churching was replaced by a general prayer of thanksgiving read from the pulpit for women who had given birth.

K8142:1. Photo: Timo Ahola, 2020.