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"We&amp;#x27;ve come a long way gals! Take pregnancy and childbirth, for instance. You won&amp;#x27;t believe some of the oddball things women used to believe and practice, according to a new book. Let&amp;#x27;s just say, I&amp;#x27;m pretty glad to be living in the year 2010! I&amp;#x27;m fascinated with the new book Get Me Out: A History of Childbirth from the Garden of Eden to the Sperm Bank by Randi Hutter Epstein, a doctor and mother of four children. She was interviewed recently on the New York Times health blog, Well. Here are a few things people used to believe about pregnancy and childbirth in the past: 1. Good sex = healthier babies. &amp;quot;They ... believed good sex made for good babies, so those old books were about how to have simultaneous orgasms,&amp;quot; she says. 2. If you look at something ugly, it means you&amp;#x27;ll have an &amp;quot;ugly baby.&amp;quot; Yikes! But Epstein says that women in past centuries believed that keeping their eyes on &amp;quot;pretty things&amp;quot; meant prettier babies. 3. Women are &amp;quot;hollow vessels,&amp;quot; men are the &amp;quot;life force.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;... A lot of the theories in ancient times held that women were just these hollow vessels and men would put the life force in them,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;Our job as humans was just to get this life force and somehow turn it into a baby.&amp;quot; Oh boy. Don&amp;#x27;t you love how ancient men tried to take credit for everything. 4. Doctors don&amp;#x27;t need to wash their hands. &amp;quot;Mary Shelley, the Frankenstein author, her mother died in childbirth,&amp;quot; says Epstein. &amp;quot;The story is that she really wanted a midwife and her husband said, &amp;amp;#8216;We have to have a male doctor. He&amp;amp;#8217;s more professional.&amp;amp;#8217; She died in childbirth. The doctor had just delivered another baby, not washed his hands, and she got an infection.&amp;quot; Sad and gross. 5. Women must lie flat and not move when in labor. Of course, we know now that moving around while in labor can move things along, even ease pain. But back in the old days, says Epstein, women were confined to beds, restricted from moving, and often completely anesthetized. &amp;quot;One woman said to me that in the hospital, after childbirth, you had to lie flat,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;It was a long stay in the hospital. Women didn&amp;amp;#8217;t know a lot of what was going on, and they kind of did what their doctors told them. A lot of them were terrified.&amp;quot; So interesting, huh? What strange things have you heard about childbirth over the years? More reading: *What I wish someone would have told me: That your belly will hang around after pregnancy--and it&amp;#x27;s normal! *The early, early results pregnancy test--it&amp;#x27;s new! More Ways to Get Glamour You could win $50,000 just for registering or logging in to Glamour.com! Sign up for Glamour.com&amp;#x27;s Style Tips of the Week and Beauty Tip of the Day newsletters! Add Glamour to your iGoogle homepage. Follow us on Twitter! Sign Up for Body By Glamour! Photo: iStock"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/health-fitness/blogs/vitamin-g/2010/02/5-crazy-things-people-used-to>