WEBVTT - Born Under the Caul 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:05.960 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:05.960 --> 0:00:12.760 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:12.800 --> 0:00:15.160 My name is Robert lamp and I am Christian Sager. 0:00:15.680 --> 0:00:18.520 And in this episode we're discussing something that I really 0:00:18.640 --> 0:00:22.320 was not familiar with until just the last month or two, 0:00:22.440 --> 0:00:25.239 and that's birth calls. Yeah, and it's C A U 0:00:25.640 --> 0:00:29.240 L is how it's phonetically spelled, but I believe it's 0:00:29.240 --> 0:00:32.040 pronounced call like you know, you would make a phone call. Right. 0:00:32.280 --> 0:00:34.440 We'll get into sort of the etymology of it later, 0:00:34.479 --> 0:00:37.720 but yeah, if you're unfamiliar with these, where we'll get 0:00:37.760 --> 0:00:39.559 we'll give you a sort of primer on what a 0:00:39.640 --> 0:00:42.720 birth call is. We'll talk about the etymology of them, 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:46.560 and we'll also get into the superstitions around them, which 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:49.680 are interesting for for thousands of years, humans have had 0:00:49.680 --> 0:00:53.840 superstitions about what birth calls do in almost every culture. Yeah, 0:00:53.920 --> 0:00:56.440 I mean you might on the surface of things mistaken 0:00:56.560 --> 0:00:58.680 for like like a cape and cowl and think that 0:00:58.720 --> 0:01:01.120 the child is born batman or something about it. Right. 0:01:01.360 --> 0:01:05.080 In fact, I posted uh an image from a nine 0:01:05.160 --> 0:01:08.120 article that we researched for this for this particular episode, 0:01:08.120 --> 0:01:10.200 and I put it on our Facebook page. And it 0:01:10.280 --> 0:01:13.600 basically looks like like their version of what a birth 0:01:13.640 --> 0:01:16.000 call looks like. It is like a little kid going 0:01:16.040 --> 0:01:18.840 out as a ghost for Halloween. Like they drew like 0:01:18.920 --> 0:01:22.520 a baby with like it looks just like a sheet 0:01:22.600 --> 0:01:24.759 over their head. Yeah, like if you made a ghost 0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:27.840 cough tumb out of you know, embryonic membrane, that's what 0:01:28.000 --> 0:01:30.440 there you go. So, so that was a little bit 0:01:30.480 --> 0:01:32.560 of a peek ahead of what we're gonna get into. 0:01:32.640 --> 0:01:35.680 So so you're you're probably listening and going, alright, guys, 0:01:35.720 --> 0:01:37.360 what is it? Tell me what a birth call is 0:01:37.360 --> 0:01:40.920 if you're unfamiliar with it. Basically, it is when a 0:01:40.959 --> 0:01:44.160 baby is born and a piece of the amniotic sac 0:01:45.440 --> 0:01:48.960 is still attached to the newborn's head or face when 0:01:48.960 --> 0:01:52.160 it's born. Looks kind of like a filmy membrane. In 0:01:52.200 --> 0:01:54.280 some cases, some people have described it as looking like 0:01:54.280 --> 0:01:58.280 a glass helmet. Uh. And Um, Basically, what happens is, 0:01:58.280 --> 0:02:01.160 either during just station or the birthing process, part of 0:02:01.200 --> 0:02:04.120 the amniotics act that we're all born within breaks away 0:02:04.120 --> 0:02:07.760 and is attached to your head. Uh. And so you're wondering, 0:02:08.000 --> 0:02:09.919 why haven't I heard of these before? Well, that's probably 0:02:09.960 --> 0:02:13.200 because one in every eighty thousand babies is born with 0:02:13.280 --> 0:02:17.519 one and they're usually either because of c sections or 0:02:17.560 --> 0:02:19.640 Another thing that I read that I wasn't able to 0:02:19.680 --> 0:02:23.080 back up with any sources was that um mothers who 0:02:23.160 --> 0:02:26.200 give birth in the water tend to have a birth 0:02:26.240 --> 0:02:29.280 call babies or or babies that are born on call, 0:02:29.360 --> 0:02:31.640 which we'll talk about in a little bit. Yeah, I was. 0:02:31.760 --> 0:02:33.839 I was not familiar with this at all, just because 0:02:33.880 --> 0:02:35.760 they don't. I don't think anyone in my immediate family 0:02:35.919 --> 0:02:38.679 has dealt with this. Uh and any and I say, 0:02:38.680 --> 0:02:40.799 dealt with it like it's for the most part, it's 0:02:40.840 --> 0:02:44.560 not a serious issue. It's more of a curiosity of 0:02:44.600 --> 0:02:47.120 all the things that can occur with a birth. The 0:02:47.160 --> 0:02:49.959 birth call is is pretty mundane. Yeah, And in fact, 0:02:50.400 --> 0:02:53.000 there you know, in a lot of cases people talk 0:02:53.040 --> 0:02:55.360 about it as being a very wonderful thing, that it's 0:02:55.360 --> 0:02:58.480 sort of awe inspiring for a baby like born with this. 0:02:58.560 --> 0:03:00.440 When I first went into it, and that there are 0:03:00.440 --> 0:03:02.480 a lot of superstitions, I thought, whether they're all going 0:03:02.520 --> 0:03:04.880 to be weird and kind of dark. It's like most 0:03:04.919 --> 0:03:08.320 of them are kind of beneficial or neither here nor there. Yeah, 0:03:08.480 --> 0:03:11.360 it depends they're all interesting on the color of the 0:03:11.400 --> 0:03:14.560 birth call, which we'll get to later. But uh yeah, 0:03:14.680 --> 0:03:16.679 So just to clarify, you know, if you're thinking about 0:03:16.720 --> 0:03:19.400 having kids, or or you're a pregnant woman right now 0:03:19.440 --> 0:03:22.679 listening to the show, you may be worrying about birth 0:03:22.680 --> 0:03:25.840 calls all of a sudden, don't. Uh. The only thing 0:03:25.880 --> 0:03:28.400 that happens with them is that they can potentially interfere 0:03:28.440 --> 0:03:31.240 with an infants respiration when you know, when it's firstborn, 0:03:31.320 --> 0:03:33.680 just because you know, they've got this filmy membrane over 0:03:33.720 --> 0:03:35.880 the face. It's like landing in a parachute, in a 0:03:35.880 --> 0:03:39.120 parachute landing on top of you. Yeah yeah, yeah yeah, 0:03:39.120 --> 0:03:42.360 And so a doctor basically quickly removes this, and you 0:03:42.400 --> 0:03:45.400 know you can keep it. Most modern patients, I don't 0:03:45.520 --> 0:03:48.720 think do, but we'll talk about all the superstitions around 0:03:48.720 --> 0:03:51.040 and keeping it and all the various things you could 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:53.800 do with it. Um. But yeah, they're they're totally natural, 0:03:53.880 --> 0:03:57.160 but they're rare, these kinds of births. Before we get 0:03:57.240 --> 0:04:00.480 into sort of the biology science behind, I do want 0:04:00.480 --> 0:04:03.440 to add a disclaimer, which is that I am a 0:04:03.520 --> 0:04:07.760 man and I have read about this stuff, but I 0:04:07.800 --> 0:04:10.960 don't have any firsthand experience with it. I've never given 0:04:11.000 --> 0:04:13.280 birth to a baby. My wife has never had a baby, 0:04:13.360 --> 0:04:15.640 and I've never been in the delivery room when a 0:04:15.640 --> 0:04:19.640 baby is born. So talking about amniotic sacks and all 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:21.520 the things that it does in the fluid within it. 0:04:21.600 --> 0:04:24.160 You know this book learning right here people, Yeah, yeah, 0:04:24.279 --> 0:04:27.040 that's same here. So and certainly, as always, we would 0:04:27.040 --> 0:04:30.279 love to hear from anyone who has direct experience with this, uh, 0:04:30.320 --> 0:04:33.400 with this topic. If you were born with an un call, 0:04:33.640 --> 0:04:36.400 or if you know anybody who was, or if you 0:04:36.440 --> 0:04:39.320 have a child that was born uh with a call 0:04:39.360 --> 0:04:41.480 over them and then let us know about it. Yeah, definitely. 0:04:41.520 --> 0:04:43.800 I think maybe it was earlier this year there was 0:04:44.000 --> 0:04:47.120 a baby born in California I think that was born 0:04:47.200 --> 0:04:49.720 on call and the photos of it went viral. I 0:04:49.720 --> 0:04:53.039 mean they were all over Facebook and tutter within hours 0:04:53.080 --> 0:04:56.320 of this baby being born. Uh So, Okay, what's an 0:04:56.320 --> 0:04:58.600 amniotic sacksom if you're saying that's what I said, because 0:04:58.600 --> 0:05:01.160 I was like, birth call, Okay, it's an amniotic schact. 0:05:01.160 --> 0:05:02.719 And then I went, wait, I don't really know what 0:05:02.800 --> 0:05:05.520 that is either. Although I spent you know, a good 0:05:05.560 --> 0:05:09.240 part of the origin of my life and one. Uh. 0:05:09.320 --> 0:05:12.719 It's an opaque bubble that covers all babies within a 0:05:12.800 --> 0:05:16.960 womb after conception, and it fills up with a fluid 0:05:17.200 --> 0:05:20.560 as the baby grows within. And this fluid is sort 0:05:20.560 --> 0:05:23.080 of you know, it's amniotic fluid, which we've we've all 0:05:23.080 --> 0:05:24.920 heard of before, but it also includes a little bit 0:05:24.960 --> 0:05:27.200 of the baby's urine. Is what happens is the baby 0:05:27.640 --> 0:05:31.039 sort of drinks in the amniotic fluid, uh and then 0:05:31.080 --> 0:05:34.279 peas it back out into this bag. So it's a 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:37.120 p bag filled with amniotic fluid as well. It's it's 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:40.560 a mixture. It's not all p uh, and it's good 0:05:40.600 --> 0:05:42.919 for us though. It has all kinds of benefits for 0:05:43.000 --> 0:05:45.640 us while we're being born. And the first thing that 0:05:45.800 --> 0:05:48.719 made me think of sci fi was, as as we 0:05:48.760 --> 0:05:51.720 tend to do on this show was remember that movie 0:05:51.760 --> 0:05:55.640 The Abyss, Yes, where they had where they had the breathable, 0:05:55.680 --> 0:05:59.440 pink ambionic fluid us to be able to dive at 0:05:59.600 --> 0:06:02.680 hyper exactly. Yeah. And I think there's some line in 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:04.600 the movie like, well, you breathe this way for the 0:06:04.640 --> 0:06:07.240 first nine months of your life or whatever, so you're 0:06:07.240 --> 0:06:09.520 you know, you're just swimming around in this bag of 0:06:09.560 --> 0:06:11.600 liquid but you're able to breathe within it, and you 0:06:11.640 --> 0:06:14.960 also have the umbilical cord as well. Um, but yeah, 0:06:15.000 --> 0:06:17.120 it helps with all kinds of things. It helps develop 0:06:17.160 --> 0:06:20.200 our digestion system, the actual act of drinking it and 0:06:20.240 --> 0:06:24.960 passing it. Uh, there's some help with respiratory track secretions 0:06:25.040 --> 0:06:29.600 that come out. Uh. There's also the idea that amniotic fluid. 0:06:29.640 --> 0:06:31.359 You know, it's it's not just like sitting there in 0:06:31.360 --> 0:06:34.640 a bag. It's constantly produced and renewed. So the baby 0:06:34.680 --> 0:06:36.760 swallows it, it passes it back out, and then it 0:06:36.839 --> 0:06:39.719 also emits some of it through the umbilical cord as well. 0:06:40.839 --> 0:06:45.080 So okay, from what I read, uh, there are two 0:06:45.480 --> 0:06:50.719 sections of these amniotic sacks. One is called the fore waters, 0:06:51.320 --> 0:06:54.000 and that's of course the part that's in front of 0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:56.680 the baby's head, and the hind waters are the part 0:06:56.760 --> 0:07:00.480 that's behind the baby's head. Uh. And you know, again 0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:03.599 like there's a lot of benefits to these sacks. The 0:07:03.720 --> 0:07:08.000 fluid helps the lungs to develop. It also provides lubrication. 0:07:08.480 --> 0:07:11.920 So you know, um, whenever we hear the terminology, you know, 0:07:11.960 --> 0:07:15.040 my water broke or breaking water or whatever, what's actually 0:07:15.080 --> 0:07:19.239 breaking is the amniotic sack and the amniotic fluid rushing forth. 0:07:19.480 --> 0:07:23.120 So it provides lubrication for the baby during pregnancy, which 0:07:23.160 --> 0:07:25.480 kind of allows it to move around inside of this thing. 0:07:25.520 --> 0:07:30.360 But it also provides lubrication to facilitate the birth. Okay, 0:07:30.360 --> 0:07:33.200 so it's kind of like a slipping slide and that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:07:33.200 --> 0:07:35.400 I mean, I I don't know why we haven't invented 0:07:35.520 --> 0:07:38.560 like some kind of toy for children that you know, 0:07:38.600 --> 0:07:41.240 brings us all back to that magical time when we're 0:07:41.360 --> 0:07:45.760 inside our mother's sphere. You climb inside off you just 0:07:46.040 --> 0:07:50.680 fill it with olive oil. I don't know, but uh um. 0:07:51.120 --> 0:07:54.920 So yeah, there's a lot of biological reasons for the 0:07:54.960 --> 0:07:58.120 amniotic sacs. So again I want to, you know, encourage 0:07:58.120 --> 0:08:01.560 you all to or rather discourage you from thinking that 0:08:01.600 --> 0:08:03.880 this is a bad thing if it comes out on 0:08:03.920 --> 0:08:07.160 your baby when it's born. It's also a shock absorber. 0:08:07.240 --> 0:08:10.200 So you remember that science project that you did in 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:12.280 high school. I did this at least, where like you're 0:08:12.280 --> 0:08:13.760 giving an egg and you have to have to drop 0:08:13.760 --> 0:08:15.800 it off the top of a building without it breaking. 0:08:16.240 --> 0:08:19.160 I think that this is sort of nature's version of that, right, 0:08:19.200 --> 0:08:22.760 So the amniotic sack absorbs the shock from just the 0:08:22.800 --> 0:08:26.559 mother's daily movements, so that we're not you know, hurt 0:08:26.600 --> 0:08:30.880 while we're while we're inside. Uh. And there's some talk 0:08:30.960 --> 0:08:33.880 that it might protect against infection as well, though I 0:08:33.920 --> 0:08:37.760 was reading some sources that said that that's not totally verified. Um, 0:08:37.880 --> 0:08:40.280 I'd be curious if anybody else out there has information 0:08:40.320 --> 0:08:43.000 about this, if if there's some hard sources that we 0:08:43.040 --> 0:08:46.040 could look to about how the amniotic sack and amniotic 0:08:46.080 --> 0:08:49.360 fluid may protect us from infection while we're while we're 0:08:49.360 --> 0:08:53.840 still you know, within our mothers during pregnancy. But yeah, 0:08:53.880 --> 0:08:55.959 but like you said that, the rupturing of this sack 0:08:56.080 --> 0:08:59.520 is generally the that's the the start starter pistol for 0:08:59.640 --> 0:09:03.720 the praction, Yeah, exactly. And and another so my understanding 0:09:03.760 --> 0:09:06.880 as well is that if this hasn't happened for a 0:09:06.920 --> 0:09:10.480 woman who is pregnant and is due, then sometimes doctors 0:09:10.520 --> 0:09:15.080 will manually rupture the sack. They actually showed this little device, 0:09:15.200 --> 0:09:17.480 this like prong kind of thing that they used to 0:09:17.600 --> 0:09:20.040 do it, and the ideas that it's supposed to either 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:23.520 start or speed up labor, you know, begetting the whole 0:09:23.559 --> 0:09:27.640 process going. There's it's referred to as artificial rupture of 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:32.960 membranes or a r M for short. Arm uh. Some 0:09:33.040 --> 0:09:36.000 of the stuff that we read about for this episode 0:09:36.080 --> 0:09:40.920 about birth calls came from a really interesting site by 0:09:41.040 --> 0:09:44.560 a midwife whose name is Rachel Reid, and she does 0:09:44.640 --> 0:09:48.520 a very thorough examination of birth calls, how they work, 0:09:48.760 --> 0:09:52.079 and sort of the history behind them. She's had experience 0:09:52.160 --> 0:09:54.920 with them. In fact, there's a there's a photo on 0:09:55.200 --> 0:09:58.400 this blog post of her friend, I think her name 0:09:58.440 --> 0:10:02.480 was Holly maybe giving birth to a child in a 0:10:02.520 --> 0:10:04.440 birth call. Okay, and we'll be fue to link to 0:10:04.480 --> 0:10:06.400 that on the landing page for this episode is stuff 0:10:06.400 --> 0:10:08.360 to Blow your Mind dot com. Yeah, And the reason 0:10:08.400 --> 0:10:10.880 why I mentioned it is that Rachel Reid recommends that 0:10:10.960 --> 0:10:14.160 women who are pregnant and think that they might want 0:10:14.200 --> 0:10:17.280 an artificial rupture of membranes, that they should be fully 0:10:17.320 --> 0:10:19.840 informed of the risks of this beforehand. And so we're 0:10:19.880 --> 0:10:23.000 talking about birth calls today, we're not talking about artificial 0:10:23.080 --> 0:10:25.160 rupture of membranes, but you know, that's something you might 0:10:25.160 --> 0:10:29.559 want to look into if if it's a concern of yours. So, okay, 0:10:29.840 --> 0:10:31.959 now we know what an amniotic sac is, we know 0:10:32.240 --> 0:10:35.080 what this film is. That's on top of the baby's 0:10:35.120 --> 0:10:36.959 head when they have a birth call and they're born. 0:10:37.559 --> 0:10:43.160 But where these where to name like birth call come from. Yeah, 0:10:43.160 --> 0:10:46.679 when we get into the etymology of it um, we 0:10:46.920 --> 0:10:50.760 see various terms for it um. Some cups called being 0:10:50.800 --> 0:10:54.520 born with a veil, land scanned water cap, lucky cat, 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:57.720 silly hood, that's my favorite one. Oh wait, no, the 0:10:57.720 --> 0:11:02.440 next one is my favorite one, silly how or lucky cape, 0:11:02.880 --> 0:11:08.680 child's little net virgins shift. And then there's little shirt. 0:11:09.240 --> 0:11:11.040 It's just a little shirt. You're just born with this 0:11:11.080 --> 0:11:13.280 little amniotic shirt. And I think these names tend to 0:11:13.320 --> 0:11:16.640 underlie the you know, the the the the harmless nature 0:11:16.720 --> 0:11:19.320 of the birth call. You would not be calling it 0:11:19.360 --> 0:11:22.720 the silly the silly hood if there was any real 0:11:22.800 --> 0:11:27.160 danger to it um. Apparently on the the the British 0:11:27.240 --> 0:11:30.040 TV show called The Midwife, which takes place in the 0:11:30.080 --> 0:11:33.439 nineteen fifties, apparently they referred to them as mermaid babies 0:11:33.600 --> 0:11:36.199 on there, and apparently is a name that was thrown 0:11:36.240 --> 0:11:38.760 around back in the day as well, which ties into 0:11:38.880 --> 0:11:42.160 some of the nautical superstitions that will discuss. Yeah, and 0:11:42.160 --> 0:11:44.840 and one of my favorite expressions, which you could only 0:11:44.880 --> 0:11:49.280 get from Scotland is Uh, a baby with a birth 0:11:49.320 --> 0:11:53.480 call was road in his mother's sark tail. Oh wow, 0:11:53.520 --> 0:11:55.920 I can't even I don't even understand that. Nope, but 0:11:56.000 --> 0:12:01.200 it sounds filthy. I'll take it. Uh. The actual etymology 0:12:01.240 --> 0:12:05.040 is that it comes from the Latin word put jalitium. 0:12:05.640 --> 0:12:07.880 I'm not a Latin scholar, but that's how it looks 0:12:07.920 --> 0:12:11.079 to me, which means head helmet. So again, I'm getting 0:12:11.080 --> 0:12:12.280 back to this idea that it looks kind of like 0:12:12.320 --> 0:12:16.079 a glass helmet, like a little a little motorcycle helmet. 0:12:16.120 --> 0:12:17.880 That's maybe that's what they should call it now, it's 0:12:17.920 --> 0:12:22.240 a lucky lucky motorcycle helmet. There's another idea out there 0:12:22.280 --> 0:12:26.599 that the word itself um is something of a synonym 0:12:26.760 --> 0:12:32.920 for amnion. Okay, so call, in addition, could mean a net, 0:12:33.080 --> 0:12:36.080 the web of a spider, the base of a wig, 0:12:36.160 --> 0:12:42.240 a woman's cap um, in any of several anatomical investing layers. 0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:46.280 So while it's rare, obviously, they've been happening for long 0:12:46.400 --> 0:12:48.520 enough and often enough that we've been able to come 0:12:48.600 --> 0:12:51.720 up with dozens of nicknames for them. This is not 0:12:51.880 --> 0:12:56.320 like an abnormality that you know, is just unheard of. 0:12:57.760 --> 0:13:00.440 And then there's an even more rare and sense of 0:13:00.480 --> 0:13:02.560 this where you know, a birth call is when you're 0:13:02.640 --> 0:13:05.800 born with the with the the part of the sack 0:13:05.840 --> 0:13:08.320 on your head, but you can actually be born what's 0:13:08.320 --> 0:13:11.880 called an uncalled birth, which sounds like I'm saying on 0:13:12.120 --> 0:13:14.440 call as if like you know, you're you're being called 0:13:14.440 --> 0:13:18.160 into the off from the hospital. It's E N C 0:13:18.440 --> 0:13:21.600 A U L birth. Uh. And these are again even 0:13:21.679 --> 0:13:24.199 more rare, but it's when you when a baby emerges 0:13:24.559 --> 0:13:29.360 fully inside of the amnio, comes out once or at 0:13:29.440 --> 0:13:31.559 least it might be piers but it's still more or 0:13:31.640 --> 0:13:34.520 less intact around exactly. Yeah. And the idea here is 0:13:35.200 --> 0:13:37.920 I believe that this happens in premature births a lot 0:13:37.960 --> 0:13:41.520 because again, like because the water itself hasn't broken, the 0:13:41.800 --> 0:13:45.760 baby is born a little early. And uh, there's like 0:13:45.800 --> 0:13:48.480 I mentioned earlier, there's c sections and and babies that 0:13:48.520 --> 0:13:50.920 are born in the water too, so so the actual 0:13:51.360 --> 0:13:54.160 you know, process of birth thing doesn't have the opportunity 0:13:54.200 --> 0:13:58.600 to rupture that sack. And again, like the birth call, 0:13:58.920 --> 0:14:01.680 it's not dangerous to be born this way. In fact, 0:14:01.840 --> 0:14:04.640 here's a little here's a little fun note for you. Uh, 0:14:04.760 --> 0:14:09.120 celebrity Jessica Alba, her second child was born on call. 0:14:09.760 --> 0:14:12.760 Uh and uh apparently this was something that was talked 0:14:12.760 --> 0:14:16.680 about in celebrity magazines at the time. Uh. She and 0:14:16.720 --> 0:14:20.120 her husband named their daughter Haven because they said she 0:14:20.240 --> 0:14:24.000 was born in her little safe haven. That's I suppose 0:14:24.000 --> 0:14:26.640 it's better than calling her a little shirt. I'm surprised 0:14:26.680 --> 0:14:29.120 we haven't seen any and maybe we have, and people 0:14:29.120 --> 0:14:33.160 can tell us about them. Any fictional characters, fantastic characters 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:36.000 who are born in on call and remain on call, 0:14:36.200 --> 0:14:39.960 like like impossibly, the call grows with them and they 0:14:40.000 --> 0:14:42.360 remains like a boy in a bubble kind of thing. Yeah, 0:14:42.400 --> 0:14:44.560 like a cross between boy and a bubble and a 0:14:44.640 --> 0:14:48.640 guild navigator, you know. Yeah, yeah, Well, I'm also I 0:14:48.640 --> 0:14:50.120 thought you were going to go in a different different 0:14:50.120 --> 0:14:52.880 direction with it is that, you know, it seems to be, 0:14:52.920 --> 0:14:54.960 as we're about to get into with the superstitions, it 0:14:54.960 --> 0:14:58.200 seems to be this sort of common trope of the 0:14:58.280 --> 0:15:01.120 chosen One. It seems like would be the perfect thing 0:15:01.160 --> 0:15:03.280 to add to it, right, Like Harry Potter was born 0:15:03.360 --> 0:15:05.800 with a birth call and it was shaped like lightning. 0:15:06.480 --> 0:15:08.640 Oh yeah, I mean there are in some accounts some 0:15:08.680 --> 0:15:12.040 accounts say that Julius Caesar was born, you know, in 0:15:12.040 --> 0:15:16.880 addition to of course being born by sincerean section. Charles 0:15:16.920 --> 0:15:20.880 Dickens I was supposedly born little birth call or I 0:15:20.920 --> 0:15:23.880 can't recall it. I can't recall if he was born 0:15:23.920 --> 0:15:26.520 on call or nearly with a birth call. But well, 0:15:26.560 --> 0:15:29.120 the one this is where I first heard about this 0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:33.400 is Alan Moore, who many of you know as a 0:15:33.640 --> 0:15:37.920 famous comic book writer. He's known for writing Watchman, Swamp Thing, 0:15:38.240 --> 0:15:42.520 be for Vendetta, Leave of Extraordinary Gentleman. There's hundreds of 0:15:42.560 --> 0:15:45.840 things that he's written. He's also a novelist. Uh. He 0:15:45.960 --> 0:15:48.880 did a performance art piece I believe it was in 0:15:48.880 --> 0:15:52.800 like the late nineties about birth. It was a piece 0:15:52.800 --> 0:15:55.160 called the Birth Call, and it was about a lot 0:15:55.200 --> 0:15:57.960 of things. But it starts off with his mother dying 0:15:58.200 --> 0:16:01.480 and he finds that she's kept her birth call her 0:16:01.520 --> 0:16:04.760 whole life. Uh. And that's where I first heard about it. 0:16:04.800 --> 0:16:07.320 I had never, you know, known that this was even 0:16:07.320 --> 0:16:10.440 a thing until I heard this Alan Moore piece before. 0:16:11.040 --> 0:16:14.320 And I'll try to provide, Like I believe that they 0:16:14.320 --> 0:16:16.640 recorded it as a c D and it used to 0:16:16.640 --> 0:16:18.640 be available, but I don't think you can buy it anymore, 0:16:18.680 --> 0:16:20.440 but there might be a link out there somewhere. I'll 0:16:20.480 --> 0:16:22.320 try to try to link to so people can hear 0:16:22.360 --> 0:16:25.720 this piece. Uh. And and it was actually adapted into 0:16:25.720 --> 0:16:28.040 a comic book later on as well, which I brought 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:30.920 in and we can take a look at. But for 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:32.960 the most part, it doesn't really show birth calls in 0:16:33.000 --> 0:16:36.800 any kind of way. It's just Alan Moore's poetic interpretation 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:39.600 of the superstitions that we're about to go on. Okay, well, 0:16:39.600 --> 0:16:42.280 hopefully we can we can find something about that and 0:16:42.480 --> 0:16:44.640 link to it on the landing, that would be excellent. 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:47.920 Uh So, before we get Toto the superstitions, I just 0:16:47.960 --> 0:16:50.840 want to cite this one particular source that was great 0:16:50.920 --> 0:16:53.320 for this, and it's it's old. Uh. It's by this 0:16:53.680 --> 0:16:55.600 guy named T. R. Forbes, and he wrote it in 0:16:55.680 --> 0:16:59.120 nineteen fifty three in the Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine. 0:16:59.360 --> 0:17:02.640 But me and is it a thorough examination of all 0:17:02.680 --> 0:17:07.120 of the superstitions. This is like pages of just every 0:17:07.160 --> 0:17:10.560 possible superstition about birth calls that he was able to find, 0:17:11.440 --> 0:17:13.960 very well backed up. The article is called the Social 0:17:14.080 --> 0:17:17.000 History of the Call c A U L And Uh 0:17:17.040 --> 0:17:20.720 it's pretty readily available online. I found it, uh I 0:17:20.760 --> 0:17:22.480 believe it was in like a medical database, and I 0:17:22.520 --> 0:17:24.960 downloaded a PDF of it right away, so I think 0:17:24.960 --> 0:17:27.800 anybody can access it. Yeah, and I also found some 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:30.840 interesting ones in the Encyclopedia of Superstitions, Folklore and the 0:17:30.880 --> 0:17:34.240 Occult Sciences of the World by Coral Land Daniels and 0:17:34.320 --> 0:17:36.960 Sam stevens Now. In both of these, I do have 0:17:37.000 --> 0:17:40.320 to admit that we did not find as many Asian 0:17:40.320 --> 0:17:43.920 and African cultural examples as we would applied. So that's 0:17:43.960 --> 0:17:46.119 another call out to listeners. It's like, if you if 0:17:46.119 --> 0:17:48.679 you know some good takes on the birth call in 0:17:48.960 --> 0:17:52.760 uh in an Asian or African culture or any or 0:17:52.800 --> 0:17:55.040 any culture that we don't cover here, we would love 0:17:55.080 --> 0:17:57.040 to hear about it. Yeah. I have to admit like 0:17:57.080 --> 0:17:59.560 that these sources were fairly eurocentric. I think there's a 0:17:59.560 --> 0:18:01.760 couple that are in South America maybe, but for the 0:18:01.800 --> 0:18:05.160 most part, it's, you know, as would be expected from 0:18:05.200 --> 0:18:08.720 an academic in the nineteen fifties, it's fairly eurocenter. Alright, 0:18:08.760 --> 0:18:10.440 we're gonna take a quick break and when we come back, 0:18:10.480 --> 0:18:13.479 we will dive into some of these superstitions and if 0:18:13.520 --> 0:18:27.000 we have time, we'll do a little listener mail. All right, 0:18:27.040 --> 0:18:32.120 we're back, So let's dive into these superstitions. Okay, Like 0:18:32.160 --> 0:18:36.120 I said, they're often believed to be something special. There's 0:18:36.160 --> 0:18:39.960 a general understanding of it being considered to be something 0:18:39.960 --> 0:18:42.359 that represents good luck when you're born with a call. 0:18:43.440 --> 0:18:47.000 The first you know quote we'll work with here is 0:18:47.040 --> 0:18:50.720 that the beneficent effect of the call was sometimes regarded 0:18:50.800 --> 0:18:54.439 as extending to the offspring of the original owner. But 0:18:54.760 --> 0:18:57.480 according to the superstition of the Middle Ages and later, 0:18:57.880 --> 0:19:00.080 this effect would be lost if the call were in 0:19:00.160 --> 0:19:02.520 a way or sold outside of the family. So in 0:19:02.520 --> 0:19:04.399 this instance, this is sort of along the lines of 0:19:04.480 --> 0:19:06.760 I think what Alan Moore was probably referencing in his 0:19:06.840 --> 0:19:09.359 piece was that people would keep one of these and 0:19:09.359 --> 0:19:11.720 then they would pass it down from generation to generation. 0:19:11.840 --> 0:19:14.120 So like if your grandmother had been born with a call, 0:19:14.680 --> 0:19:17.919 you would at some point inherit the call and subsequently 0:19:17.960 --> 0:19:22.320 inherit the good luck of it. Okay uh. There was 0:19:22.560 --> 0:19:26.800 an idea that Roman midwives used to steal these from 0:19:26.880 --> 0:19:30.800 babies that were born and sell them to lawyers because 0:19:30.880 --> 0:19:32.960 lawyers believed that they had one of these, it would 0:19:33.000 --> 0:19:35.560 help them win a case and generally these who are 0:19:35.560 --> 0:19:37.560 you know, they're not wearing them on their heads, so 0:19:37.560 --> 0:19:40.399 I don't want to know. But there are some I 0:19:40.440 --> 0:19:43.439 don't know, not in that particular example, but there's some 0:19:43.520 --> 0:19:46.840 weird stuff people did with these. So for instance, like, uh, 0:19:47.000 --> 0:19:49.480 some cultures would take them and grind them down in 0:19:49.520 --> 0:19:52.280 a powder that you would consume, and they thought that 0:19:52.320 --> 0:19:55.080 I would cure malaria. Okay, well that's that's believable. You 0:19:55.080 --> 0:20:00.600 do see in in various cultures degrees of cannibalism, cannibalistic 0:20:00.600 --> 0:20:05.600 medicine and yeah, uh, in Croatia, in one region of Croatia, Uh, 0:20:05.640 --> 0:20:09.680 there was a historical superstition of placing a call under 0:20:09.720 --> 0:20:12.040 a dying person's bed because the idea was that it 0:20:12.040 --> 0:20:14.959 would help make their passing go either. Again, it's it's 0:20:14.960 --> 0:20:18.200 a protective element, and it worked for the newborn baby, 0:20:18.240 --> 0:20:21.359 then perhaps it will help the dying individual as well. 0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:24.199 And some people I believe that More talks about this 0:20:24.240 --> 0:20:27.400 in his in his piece. But uh, some people would 0:20:27.480 --> 0:20:30.480 go and bury them in field sort of outside of 0:20:30.480 --> 0:20:32.240 where the baby was born. And the idea was that 0:20:32.280 --> 0:20:33.960 if it was buried in the field that you could 0:20:34.000 --> 0:20:37.000 you know, it would give luck to this person's life 0:20:37.040 --> 0:20:39.960 as they grew up within that area, you know, they're 0:20:40.160 --> 0:20:43.359 it's always close by. There's one note that said that 0:20:43.480 --> 0:20:47.240 coal miners carried them off to carried them with them 0:20:47.280 --> 0:20:50.520 to ward off fires. So there's an interesting thing here, 0:20:50.760 --> 0:20:56.920 the idea that birth calls are sort of elemental in 0:20:57.200 --> 0:21:00.479 their nature, and there's a sort of water or affect 0:21:00.560 --> 0:21:02.920 to them, right, they ward off fires. And as we'll 0:21:02.960 --> 0:21:06.160 we'll get into as well. They they they were also 0:21:06.200 --> 0:21:10.000 believed to make their bearers immune to drowning for the 0:21:10.040 --> 0:21:15.119 rest of their lives. And thus the mermaids hood example, Yeah, exactly, 0:21:15.640 --> 0:21:19.200 and and in fact midwives, you know, when they weren't 0:21:19.200 --> 0:21:21.920 stealing them and selling to the lawyers, other midwives would 0:21:22.000 --> 0:21:24.600