Ever wondered how pregnancy was detected before the advent of pregnancy test kits?
It has got an interesting history—maybe a little too much interesting (and weird)!
Since time immemorial, humans are trying to figure out ways to detect pregnancy before the physical signs begin to appear.
The history of detecting pregnancy has got many interesting stories—some ancient methods were as much as 70% accurate (scientifically proven later), while others are a total belief and are just myths.
From the days of ancient Egypt, around 1000 BC, when a form of modern-day condoms is believed to have been used for the first time, to the days before 1978, when home pregnancy tests became widely available, we have got a long history of detecting pregnancy, gender of the child and involvement of wheat, barley and onion.
In this issue of Be Curious, we’ll go through 3 different methods of ancient pregnancy detection that you may find weird enough to shout “whaaaaat?” but it’s true. Not scientifically, but historically. and at the same time, some of these methods are commendable because even after thousands of years they proved 70% effective.
Let’s jump right in!
1. The Wheat and Barley Test
Ancient Egyptians were popular for so many reasons. From building pyramids to mummies to many ahead-of-their-time inventions. Add the use of condoms and one of the ancient ways of detecting pregnancy to that list.
In those times, infant mortality rates were as high as 50%. and it was harder than ever to be a mother, and that’s why Egyptian moms were super careful about sanitary practises and breastfeeding.
The wheat and barley test for pregnancy detection is one of the most famous and bizzare baby detection techniques.
To determine if a woman is pregnant, she would have to urinate on on both wheat and barley separately.
Three different things can happen and each were a sign for something:
If none of them germinated: the woman is not pregnant
If the wheat germinated: woman is pregnant with a female child
If the barley germinated: woman is pregnant with a male child
Interestingly, a laboratory experiment was performed to weight the truth of this method.
It was found that 70% of the time the urine of the pregnant woman made the grains sprout. On the other hand, the urine of non-pregnant women did not cause the grains to germinate.
This was quite an advancement at that time.
Interesting, huh?
2. The Onion in the Vagina
The Greeks were rather more advanced in this baby-detection-as-early-as-possible test.
They used onion or scented linen to find out if a woman was pregnant.
They would insert onion or apply scented linen to the vagina of the woman in the night, and if the next morning her mouth didn’t smell of onion or the scent of the linen, she was pregnant.
The rationale behind this was the belief that a woman's womb was “unobstructed” or “open” and it would allow the scent to pass through and hence the next morning, her mouth would smell of it.
But if she’s pregnant, her womb will have an obstruction, and the smell can’t travel through, hence her mouth will not smell like it.
3. The Rabbit Test
From wheat, barley, and onion, we are now moving on to animals. First up, rabbits.
The term “rabbit test” was first recorded in 1949. This is also from where the once popular euphemism “the rabbit died” originated. It meant a woman was pregnant with a baby.
How this worked was by injecting the urine of the woman was injected into rabbits, and if the woman was pregnant, then the ovaries of the rabbits would swell.
All the rabbits would eventually die as they had to be surgically opened in order to examine the ovaries. But a popular misconception was that only the rabbit which was injected with a pregnant woman’s urine would die. That’s why “the rabbit died” was considered good news.
There are many more tests that involve different plants, animals, or objects. Apart from wheat, barley, linen, onions, and rabbits, there are also frogs and mice. Find out more here and here if interested.
It’s evident that from the point that animals were used to test pregnancy, we are using the hormone that is produced during pregnancy, human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), to accurately find out if a woman is pregnant.
Due to the development of medical sciences, it’s not necessary to kill an animal to detect pregnancy anymore.
The two modern-day common methods for testing pregnancy are testing for the female pregnancy hormone (human chorionic gonadotropin or hCG) in blood or urine using a pregnancy test kit, and scanning with ultrasonography.
So, bye-bye, not-so-good ol’ days!
I hope you enjoyed today’s issue and found it informative.
See you this Wednesday with a continuation of the previous week’s post on persuasion.