Why Japanese Doctors Thought Dates Killed Babies

Historical Japanese OB-GYNs and their fixation with the calendar.
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Heian Childbirth was WILD: • Giving Birth Was WILD ...
0:00 A VIP lady's childbirth
2:30 Why the hanshi obsession?
6:10 AAHHH! More calendar-related dangers.
NEED FOOD =)
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RECOMMENDED
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🔸Sexuality in Medieval Japan: • Life of Early Japanese...
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🔸Legendary Weapons of Japan:
• Muramasa Swords | Lege...
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SOURCES
🔸 Childbirth in aristocratic households of Heian Japan: scielo.isciii.es/scielo.php?s...
🔸 Pregnancy, Incantations, and Talismans in Early Medieval Japan: www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/12/11/...
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#Heian #HistoryOfJapan #Linfamy

[@Linfamy]

Giving Birth Was WILD in Classical Japan: kzbin.info/www/bejne/m6K5oIRoZrdmfK8 Please consider supporting the channel =) 🔸 PATREON (blog, art): www.patreon.com/Linfamy 🔸 MEMBERSHIP: kzbin.infojoin 🔸 MERCH: linfamy.creator-spring.com (shirts, stickers, phone cases, and more!) 🔸 DONATE: www.paypal.me/Linfamy

[@greekyogurt9997]

Hi

[@Jxy9]

U should do a story about ryomen sukuna

[@connormcpherson9977]

Hey just wondering why happened to history of Japan series? I just really enjoyed the in depth history.

[@12235117657598502586]

Your dialogue never ceases to entertain me! 👍🙂

[@misskate3815]

I thought this was going to be about how doctors thought dates killed babies and I was like, “That makes a lot of sense, tho, they’re chock full of sugar and I probably wouldn’t give one to a baby.” So I was very confused for a sec.

[@Linfamy]

😂

[@supermom7433]

I was curious too because dates are actually very good for pregnant women, aside from the sugar that is lol.

[@emrsdca]

Thank you, I thought I was the only one!

[@jatnarivas8741]

I thought it was going to be about how the big pits of dates were a choking hazard

[@Sweet.peach21]

“Not to be transphobic , but a dead bebe was undesirable.” Yo as a trans person I am HOWLING with laughter

[@Sweet.peach21]

“...like foster care today, there’s a decent chance you’ll end up w a dead bebe.” And as a former foster youth, this is also hilarious. 42 seconds in and I’m losing my sides

[@Linfamy]

😅

[@chocolizard678]

glad you enjoyed the joke

[@Sweet.peach21]

@@chocolizard678 so did i, but i think the way he acknowledged it made it pretty safe, just a smidge dark. Linfamy always pokes fun so if you're a regular watcher, you'll prolly think its funny too. i hope no one gives him shit for it

[@dudanunesbleff]

I didn't get the joke.

[@jeffwolcott7815]

I just love how you say 'baby.' It just makes me smile.

[@KwispyZ]

It also makes me laugh because his pronunciation "bebe" literally means vagina in another language.

[@ChasmChaos]

@@KwispyZ which language is that? Bébé (his pronunciation) is "baby" in French

[@DarlingHongHonger]

His pronunciation (bebe) is like how you say baby in Spanish ^^

[@KwispyZ]

@@ChasmChaos Chamorro Edit: it's not a major language like Spanish or French or Japanese

[@brandoncastillo_05]

Fucking cherry on top for me

[@navs123]

Imagine being a doctor calculating when it will be safe for the bebe to be born only for the mother to send the bebe back

[@Linfamy]

😂

[@emilybarclay8831]

It’s interesting to see what rationalisations ancient societies came up with for the randomness of childbirth lol

[@slook7094]

The crazier thing was that this wasn't that ancient. This was only 1000 or so years ago, so the middle ages.

[@W4iteFlame]

They were kind of trying to figure it out...or to receive lots of money from wealthy for doing random crap

[@ChasmChaos]

I'm curious what the state of the art in statistics was back then. Surely, people studied gambling mathematically. Did frequentist probability exist, but was just not applied to everyday events?

[@samuraiboi2735]

@@slook7094 but still middle ages was damn crazy with those torture methods or childbirth practices.

[@MirrorscapeDC]

@@ChasmChaos humans are generally pretty bad at statistics and probability. It's just not intuitive for us. Proper statistics are also pretty hard to do correctly. There is a reason most stem courses teach whole classes on the subject. And of course, you need to convince other people that your results are correct. I'm guessing it is much easier to convince a person that an evil spirit is responsible for their suffering that just pure bad luck.

[@idraote]

- 3.58 ""vaginas were matters of national security"" (medieval Japan) - US Supreme Court has entered the chat.

[@edi9892]

I've got more dead siblings than living ones. Even today in the West, birth is never certain, only death is... Oddly enough, my mother feared that her dead daughters may be jealous of me, her only (living) child.

[@johnparla6252]

I had a twin that died at 2 months in all the dead want are most of the time for the living to servive and be happy. I also get visions to witch scar the crap out of me some times

[@FelicityUwU]

I am very thankful that my mother has never had many complications and has never lost a child. I have 8 siblings and although they drive me crazy, I love them very much. It's hard to aprecate them sometimes tho, so thank you for telling your story. It helped me a lot.

[@-desertpackrat]

It's so sad how often it still happens. I have a friend who had one baby but then she had a stroke at only 19 or 20 years old, and then got pregnant, not having planned to, but she was still gonna have the baby anyway. Sadly the baby never made it, probably the stroke she was still recovering from from the couple years before that made it too hard for her body to sustain the pregnancy, it was so sad. And when I was 6 years old in the 90s my mom was pregnant with my baby brother and started bleeding and my dad had to take her to the hospital and left us with the neighbors. My mom and brother almost died but they did a C section and he was premature and had to stay in an incubator for a week or two before he could come home. My mom said his body was all blue and cold when he came out because his lungs weren't working, we all thought he wasn't going to make it. He just had his own baby with his wife in October 2020, his wife had to also have a C section because their baby was a little too big for her to birth naturally, complications are still so common and the only reason so many women and babies do survive now is the medicine and technology we now have, at least in some parts of the world.

[@CaRaMeLlDaNsEnShOw1]

I watched this whole video thinking the title meant "dates" as in the dried fruit and kept wondering when he was going to bring them up

[@Linfamy]

😂

[@BlueberryFundip]

Thank you for yet another fun chibi-filled adventure into history🥰🥰🥰

[@Linfamy]

[@waddledee6642]

Being a Japanese midwife sounds like a kind of good job.

[@merchantfan]

Ah ancient medicine. Patient: Hey doc, will I die? Doctor: *ruffles fervently through a large stack of papers and then stands up importantly* The fuck if I know

[@spookypooky1362]

Despite the video being named somthings about delivering babies and the fact that it was mentioned MULTIPLE TIMES when Linfamy said "Once when a noble ladies delivery was taking a bit long" I immediately assumed he was talking about some feudal era Amazon delivery.😆

[@Linfamy]

Lol

[@-desertpackrat]

The foster care comment is too real, I know people who were in foster care and it's like people only become foster parents to abuse kids without the responsibility of actually adopting them, so it's easier to mistreat them 'cause they're not and never will be your actual kid. It's disgusting, some of my friends were literally prostituted in their foster homes, kept on drugs, beaten up and molested for years. And also if you never get adopted you never have legal parents and there are things you can't do even as an adult, without parents. One of my friends couldn't sign up for FAFSA to go to college even though they were 23, because if you're under 25 you have to put what your parents' income is to qualify for FAFSA, and there's no way to do it if you're a foster kid who never had legal guardians, or if you're someone estranged to your parents and can't ask them "what was your annual income in 2021 I need it for FAFSA", it's gross how anyone not in conventional families are treated, on top of all they've already been through as a kid they can't even escape once they hit 18.

[@stevenschnepp576]

Except you can sign up for FAFSA, you just need to contact your school's financial aid office and provide paperwork. It was literally the first result when I looked it up.

[@Lucious410]

I laughed way too hard at the adoption joke. Mostly cause I used to tell my younger brother that. Yeah I was definitely an ass as a kid. Thank for the video 😄

[@Linfamy]

Haha evil brother

[@Lucious410]

@@Linfamy More like evil older sister 😈

[@mohamadhafidal-ahyar2253]

I think everyone do that to their siblings, one day when my lil brother was throwing tantrum and din't want to stop, my sister put all his clothes in the suitcase, brought it to him and said "now go home to your real mom in other island, you are just adopted here" He cried loudly and begging to my mom "mom even if your are not my real mom, please don't throw me away, I will be a good boy after this, I want to stay here" 😂😂

[@Linfamy]

@@mohamadhafidal-ahyar2253 what are older siblings for if not traumatizing their younger siblings?

[@shanewilliams8099]

My man just casually drops the bomb that 100 kids died in Texas childcare I’m legit shocked by that news 😨

[@theera9514]

"Now not to be transphobic but a dead baby was very undesirable" I cannot stop laughing

[@ethannorman7537]

Is there a way to see if I was born on an unlucky day or direction? I need something to blame for my life

[@bigfoottroisiemepartielave1759]

Tried blaming your parents or siblings? A political party?

[@regentvoo]

Oh pls, the chinese are so afraid of life i always say its better to be dead. We have a thing for anything and everything. Lemme tell u how bad izzit. You cant give shoes cause it means you trying to get rid of them. So yeah, dats y parents give u shoes. Cant give clocks cause it sounds like sending someone off to their funeral, cant sweep during CNY cause you sweeping all the luck out (so vacuum it i always say) yada yada yada so much so I hated my grandfather

[@EmiStar070]

The government is always an option, and the school system. Possibly parents or grandparents too

[@carolinemoon8477]

I’ve been watching your videos for about year or so🙂. I adore your storytelling style. Thank you for doing such an amazing job! Especially grateful for fundraising. I’m from Ukraine. Grateful to see that you care🙂.

[@Jobe-13]

*Me, who was born on Friday May 13th at 10:00 AM:* 👀

[@Linfamy]

Oh, happy birthday! 🎂

[@Jobe-13]

@@Linfamy lol thanks

[@probablysomeoneimportant5755]

Happy birthday

[@Jobe-13]

@@probablysomeoneimportant5755 thanks

[@marocat4749]

Happy bfay!

[@grantpodue39]

thank you, i just found your channel two weeks ago, this is is perfect it is just what i was looking for, the only class i was never able to take in college before i graduated in 2019, on Japanese history was ancient and medieval history, i can't wait to watch all your content and i like the chibi style, thanks again

[@lindsaystevens4062]

The directional gods are all being depicted as ghost pokemon. Priceless!

[@ShinigamisBlade]

I absolutely love the humor in this episode 😂 the dark humor in all of these videos is always on point 🤌

[@alex_zetsu]

Oddly, if you believed in Hanshi and then always used those precautions when the birth was dangerous, you'd end up with the mother having the same survival rate as on days when she doesn't have to take precautions so... success?

[@Normal_user_coniven]

Duskull: (appeared). Me: "Where did I see that ghost before?". More ghost-type pokemons: (appeared). Me: "Oh, yeah. That's where I saw it before".

[@tenebrousoul9368]

Lin! Lin! He's our man! If he can't do it, no one can!

[@Linfamy]

[@slook7094]

But he didn't do it. He hired someone else to do the art.

[@a2pabmb2]

... So what you're saying is, we're boned?

[@slook7094]

@@a2pabmb2 Yes.

[@MisterCynic18]

That adoption joke was vicious 😂

[@jamarrawls8567]

I love your narrations! Don't ever stop doing you!

[@just_radical]

The voiceover: The Bureau of Medicine The picture on screen: Japanese men trying on fake noses and flesh colored Mardi Gras masks. Linfamy what the hell is going on the Bureau of Medicine?

[@Linfamy]

I dunno, but I wanna join in

[@WildBillCox13]

"Not to be . . ." I'm being left behind, comically speaking, by funnier men. That should cheese me, but I find it most enjoyable. Great work, Lin!

[@WildBillCox13]

" . . . that mom and dad . . ." Ayahhh, Lin!

[@WildBillCox13]

"We still . . ."

[@Linfamy]

Haha thanks!

[@blenderbanana]

Wow. Your art is getting awesome!

[@saiyajedi]

Dude, you missed posting this on a combination Friday the 13th *and* Butsumetsu by _one day_

[@HelloItsMikkan]

Different direction gods are apparently my favorite Ghost type Pokemon.

[@Kiefsti]

As soon as I hear the lilt of your voice, I get all excited for the episode.

[@ZarlanTheGreen]

I've finished watching through all your Japan videos… (excl streams) Dammit, I want more videos, NOW! (note: don't rush, I want you to maintain your good high quality …but I want them now! … How about you create a time machine, and…)

[@Linfamy]

Wow that's quite a few vids to watch 😂

[@ryuo8852]

Manage to catch up to your vids I missed . ( Also , weird that KZbin isn't notifying me your vids . Luckily , I checked em myself )

[@Linfamy]

Woohoo!

[@madisimonich6247]

You are popping off in this one, I'm so dead 🤣🤣

[@musAKulture]

if u like this man's content, dont forget to turn on closed captions

[@mararosioara1727]

I really loved this video!💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖

[@Linfamy]

Glad you like :)

[@eternal8364]

The way you say bebeh is half the reason I wait for your videos to drop

[@alannac1174]

“But enough about things that don’t work-“ 💀👏

[@saturos53]

I do fear too the babies born Friday. It's a high risk it ruins my weekend.

[@thedankboyo2460]

"people thought spirits and gods were real, real psychopaths who can fuck up your health"

[@telinhajp]

Hi Linfamy! Hugs from Tokyo! 🤗❤️

[@Linfamy]

Cheers from USA :)

[@tenebrousoul9368]

Nippon Ichiban!

[@nickg8915]

Honestly when I read this title I thought you meant dates as in the fruit lol

[@chan.username]

I love your channel, are there other channels like this the go over other cultures??

[@Linfamy]

Sure, check out Cool History Bros, they focus on East Asia :)

[@marocat4749]

Do you know overly sarcastic productions, its more about history, but very fun and entertaining, also fun drawn myths, Dunno ocean keltoi is that with norse. Its a pagan but as good for anyone interested to weird and interest , and its funny. The volsi story video for example. 🤣 But there are a lot out there, bout cultures. Funny! Some even good.

[@richt63]

Great video. It certainly explains my luck. I was born in the 1960s in the showa period. However my luck is getting better since my interest in Japanese culture.

[@ChaosDarkLight]

I don't know how, but this video is hilarious!

[@krimzonstriker7534]

Soooo love the cultural context stuff but are the historical videos gonna be back? Was really interested in learning about the Kenmui restoration and how the Northern and Southern courts worked in that period :D

[@soulcstudios]

I love your "not to be transphobic" joke in the beginning. I'm a non-binary trans person and bigotry against me for my gender is transphobia, no need to specify further. I am very glad I was not assigned dead at birth, my twin and I were preemies and if it wasn't for modern medicine the two of us would have been!

[@-desertpackrat]

my baby bro is a preemie and just had his first kid in 2020, it's crazy to think about. He had to live in an incubator for a while to keep his body temp and help him breathe because his lungs weren't quite ready yet.

[@notsans9995]

You should have.

[@Packless1]

1:57 ...NGE/Gendo-Ikari reference...? ;-) 5:05 ...holy crab...is it THAT complicated...? 7:37 ...watch 'The Genji-Tales'...!

[@Phlowermom]

I love the way you say 'bebe'! Is the hanshi similar to ba zi in China?

[@AmateurMaestro]

If a Noble Women did not give an male heir, they will say: "Oh no, your not gonna be divorced.. it's way worse than that" a king that's not Japanese

[@prophetjesaja1638]

In fifteenhundredfourtyseven Henry the VIII went off to heaven. Or maybe, for his dirty tricks, to H-E-Hockeysticks.

[@AmateurMaestro]

@@prophetjesaja1638 yep it was

[@sasam226]

I find so funny how you say bebe😂 is great to learn story and have fun

[@MeianCommunity]

lmao Nichiyū is literally just duskull

[@thetowerstillstands]

No doubt you've done something on this _but_ with the heavy influence of China upon Japan: did foot binding become an issue in Japan?

[@dirckthedork-knight1201]

Wasn't foot binding only a thing during the Ching dynasty? If yes then probably not

[@thetowerstillstands]

@@dirckthedork-knight1201 That's what I am asking. With the influence Chinese culture had; I was wondering if foot binding _happened_ in Japan. I have never heard of it but living in the western world limits my knowledge.

[@Linfamy]

Nah, foot binding was not practiced in Japan.

[@marcogumiero8610]

@@thetowerstillstands I think you misunderstood. What Dirck the Dork-knight was trying to say is that foot-binding became common in China in a period of history when chinese influence had mostly stopped coming to influence japan, especially about social norms.

[@thetowerstillstands]

@@marcogumiero8610 ok

[@anonymousnlonely3315]

7:06 ALL THE GHOSTS ARE POKÈMON

[@zinzolin14]

Ah yes, the true gods of this realm: Ghost type Pokémon

[@ramonafahrni5701]

Greetings from Italy!

[@Linfamy]

Cheers from USA!

[@jwoolman5]

I saw the title and was trying to figure out why dates (the tasty fruit) were a problem for childbirth. They are so delicious! Oops.

[@emilybarclay8831]

Dates notoriously make one’s lower passages looser, so a pregnant mother who ate too many dates risked accidentally firing her baby out of her cooch like a bullet

[@jwoolman5]

@@emilybarclay8831 🙀

[@ryoumakoushiro7447]

06:38 Huh, my father told me that when I made trouble

[@harshranjan8526]

For thumbnail:I was born on Saturday 😂

[@Linfamy]

:O

[@kopiko102277]

Wait- I WAS ALSO BORN ON A SATURDAY-

[@Linfamy]

@@kopiko102277 :O

[@harshranjan8526]

@@Linfamy :O

[@SpinningOmoriPlushie]

4:45 This is sad

[@jamarrawls8567]

You had me when me you said.."bebe"...lol!

[@ladyofthemasque]

Thumbs up for the unexpected but delightful LHC joke...

[@amberkat8147]

It's kinda wild how these really specific beliefs come about. I believe in spirits, no doubt about it- I've seen spirits and a ghost both. But all these specific things about dates and directions are wild to me. I just figure people shouldn't defile natural things/nature a lot if they don't want to make the local spirits upset at them and invite trouble and shouldn't commit massacres or murder in a place if they don't want bad energy to be left behind. Not very specific, I grant, but at least it's fairly practical. There's nothing in my belief system about drawing a certain pattern, facing a certain direction, washing your hands 4 times and pissing on a deer, or doing anything on a certain date. And yeah, that only covers stuff in this world- like I know anything about gods and stuff!

[@stevenschnepp576]

They pretty much start right where you are, believing in irrational things, and go wild from there because there's no truly rational checks on their thinking.

[@MrsRemi]

Me reading the title in his voice: Why Japanese Doctors FEARED The Calendar When Delivering _be-bes_

[@judeelement7017]

Linfamy can you do a video on these yokai? 1 taka onna 2 nikusui 3 Katawaguruma 4 Kage onna 5 tsurara onna I would love to see one of these yokai to be in your video linfamy.

[@eclipsedmoon87]

I didn't know Nichiyu was a Duskull

[@Jimoooooo]

I await your videos like a Yuki onna

[@Linfamy]

Wait-- should I be worried 😱

[@edi9892]

Wrong season for you...

[@ANSIcode]

The video does not even try to answer the question in the title, which is "why".

[@zainmudassir2964]

I like how u said bebe

[@yesytiamsure9311]

Can you do a video on nure-onna

[@robertdefoe2396]

Interestingly when I type in nichiyu, google keeps trying to sell me forcklifts.

[@TheGoukaruma]

Will you ever visit Japan?

[@_helper_5789]

Direction thing still is in Mongolia. I think its ridiculous but still believe in it. I m a disgrace to science

[@Linfamy]

Interesting! What specifically do you believe with regards to directions?

[@slook7094]

Superstition is a cultural tradition. It's impossible to separate rationality from culture completely. For example, people still knock on wood for luck. Actors refuse to say "Macbeth." People feel uncomfortable on Friday the 13th. People don't speak ill of the dead. People still make brides wear "something borrowed, something blue, something old, something new" and don't let the husbands see them in their wedding dresses until the ceremony. As long as you aren't hurting someone, there's nothing inherently wrong with these cultural traditions.

[@_helper_5789]

Like China, Mongolia celebrates Lunar New Year, and on the first day of the year, you have to go to one direction and go back to your home depending on your born year. For example, go right and go back to home from left etc. Some people also wait good day for trip, kid’s haircut like hanshi.

[@Linfamy]

Gotcha :). My family has a ritual during lunar new year where we go to temple and don't come home until after midnight, and the most auspicious person that year enters the house first, thru the front door.

[@yiwoon_cr8s]

After all Superstitions and folk beliefs are a sign of the persevering of our native cultures

[@kitsunelee007]

I looked up Emperor's and other Chinese and Japanese nobility and it's like damn near everyone was born on my birth and month.

[@Luthien4497]

Nice haha :D Good afternoon everybody :D

[@Linfamy]

Good morning :)

[@milymaj]

More numerology video, pls 😂

[@oopsy444]

Wasnt expecting a space balls joke here lol

[@aestheticescape7]

"BeBe" 😌👌🏻

[@AdamMichalMarkowski]

0:16 - Ah! Fujiwara! A family that famously married their daughters to Japanese emperors!

[@estefanogutierrezz]

I love when he says curse words jezzz.... makes me lmfao but only when its occasional tho

[@blackknightjack3850]

You better make sure you face the direction of the Gengar spirit and not the Dusknoir spirit otherwise your kid is going to be doomed to NU for the rest of his life.

[@ryansikora9524]

When pokemon determine where you give birth

[@k.katona9415]

30 seconds in and I'm already dying laughing 🤣

[@dunewalker3006]

'The idea came from China' -> this channel in a nutshell

[@astra1653]

Good grief, it would have been horrible if priest/mother/baby/doctor/female doctor/or the calendar had my husband's sense of direction. Everybody be deaded.

[@HealerTheMaroon]

How come no one is doing a fund Raiser for Flint Michigan?

[@eburel506]

(Raises hand) why are the directional gods Pokémon? And did the court sorcerers as the mother to pick her starter before birth?

[@miriga3927]

Not me not looking at the thumbnail and going the fruit was killing babies?

[@guineasandherb8937]

My man drew the rest of the direction gods as pokemon lmao

[@MsAngelique]

I thought you meant a date as in food.

[@DrtyTreeHuggr]

Japan is literally China Jr 🤣

[@gigim.9742]

I see ZeFrank's use of "bebeh" is just as infectious here as in my own household 🤣

[@ElhPudding]

Direction Gods are cute Pokémon

[@Linfamy]

Hm.. they don't sound so bad now

[@mrcellophane226]

Howdy Partner

[@Linfamy]

Howdy

[@AmateurMaestro]

Hey Linfamy, as a 12 year boi idiot, I just wanna say that.. I love u and your channel... I dared my myself to say this, and also I prefer my country's history and mystery and France too

[@Linfamy]

Thank you :)

[@MewtwoExMasterMusic]

So many ghost gods… *Throws an Acorn Ball.*

[@four3353]

Not the monks scaring the baby out of the womb 🌚