IMAGES IN NEONATAL MEDICINE
Kneeling delivery in America 2000 years ago
1 Instituto de Genética Humana, Facultad de Medicina, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá, Colombia
Correspondence to:
Dr J E Bernal, Instituto de Genética Humana, Facultad de Medicina, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Cra 7 No 40–62, Bogotá, Colombia; jebernal@javeriana.edu.co
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Kneeling delivery has been preserved in America for more than 2000 years as gathered from artistic representations of pre-Columbian Indians. The Tumaco-La Tolita culture flourished on the border between present day Colombia and Ecuador; although it was extinct by the time the Spaniards arrived, the people left a huge collection of pottery artefacts that have been extensively studied. Many disease representations have been found among these pottery figurines.1 We report here on a piece depicting the birth of a child (fig 1), with our own artistic representation for clarification (fig 2). The piece shows a delivery in a maternal kneeling position, with a man behind the woman. Two pieces of equipment are placed around the neck of the child. Studies show that 62 out of 76 non-European societies give birth in an upright position.2 Van Patten3 described a squatting position as common in Mexico before 1600
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